ILIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



I ^/u.// ..VV..4 \ 

^ 

.| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 



WESTERN WINDOWS 



AND 



OTHER POEMS. 



JOHN JAMES PIATT. 




NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON 

1872. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 

JOHN J. PIATT, 

In the Clerk'e Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 

Southern District of Ohio. 



DEDICATION. 



Cincinnati, Ohio, Sept., 1868. 
My dear Mr. Prentice: 

I owe you many of those debts that one friend can only pay anothe* 
(and never pay in full) out of his heart ; please to think my dedication 
of this book an acknowledgment of them. The poems in the present 
volume have, with a few exceptions, been under cover (and under fire, 
too, for that matter,) before ; but they arc here massed, so to speak 
" for a general review, doubtless," will you say ? 

Many of the pieces in this colleftion are suggestive to me of the 
hours when I was associated with you in a companionship which must 
always seem very dear to me when I recall it : this is a merit which 
I may find in them without blame, I am sure. 

With many wishes for your health and happiness, I remain, 

Very aflfedlionately, 

Your friend, 

J. J. P. 

Geo. D. Prentice, Esq_., 

Louis-vil/e, Ky. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Dedication, 3 

Western Windows. 

Western Windows, 1 1 

The Mower in Ohio, 13 

Reading the Milestone, 18 

The Pioneer's Chimney, 19 

Fire Before Seed, 3° 

King's Tavern, 33 

Fires in Illinois, 3^ 

Riding to Vote, 39 

Land in Cloud, 43 

Sunshine and Firelight. 

Rose and Root, 47 

The Sunshine of Shadows, 4^ 

Higher Tenants, S° 

New Grass, 53 

Outgoing, 5^ 

The Blackberry Farm, 59 

The Morning Street, 62 

The Lost Horizon, 65 

Antaeus, 67 

6 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

One of Two, 71 

The Old Man and the Spring Leaves, 72 

The Master Key, 75 

Parting, 78 

The Monk's Vision of Christ, 79 

The First Fire, 81 

Taking the Night Train, 85 

Leaves at my Window, 87 

Charity at Home, 90 

Marian's First Half-Year, 91 

Firelight Abroad, 95 

A Lost Graveyard, 98 

At Evening, 100 

The Unheard Bell, 102 

The Dark Street, 104 

Quatrains, 105 

The Golden Hand, 107 

The Grave- Angel, 109 

The Buried Ring, no 

At Christmas Eve, 112 

Sundown, 115 

White Frost, 117 

Passengers, 118 

Foresight of Fate, 120 

To One in a Darkened House, 121 

The Birthdays, 122 

To Grace at Christmas, 126 

The Last Fire,....; 128 

To my Brother Guy, 131 

Resurrection, 134 

6 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Moonrise, 137 

To a Child, 139 

The Blue Bird's Burial, 140 

Sleep, 144 

Frost on the Panes, ; 145 

To the Lares, 147 

B. M. P., 148 

For a Gravestone, 149 

The Sight of Angels, 150 

Sonnets. 

My Shadow's Stature, 153 

My Nightmare, 154 

To a Poet on His Marriage, 155 

The Book of Gold, 157 

Travelers, 159 

Anniversary, 160 

Twofold...... 161 

A Bust in Clay, 162 

Mirage, 163 

September, , 164 

The Week, 165 

The White Lily, 166 

Awake in Darkness, 167 

The Child in the Street, 168 

Five Years. 

The Bronze Statue , 171 

Honors of War, iy2 

A Sabbath in July .*; I^a 

The Nests at Washington, lye 

7 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Sonnet in 1862, 178 

The Ballad of a Rose, 179 

The Open Slave-Pen, 183 

The Dear President, 186 

To R. C. S., 189 

The Unbended Bow, 190 

Footsteps Returning. 

Riding the Horse to Market, 195 

The First Tryst, 200 

The Buried Organ, 201 

Two Patrons, 204 

Genius Loci, 205 

Apart, 207 

After a While, 208 

•«To ," 210 

Melancholy, 212 

Folded Down, 213 

The Love-Letter, 216 

Confidants, 217 

The Deserted Smithy, 218 

Fallen Leaves, 221 

An Echo, 223 

In October, 224 

The Birds of Longing, 225 

The Grave of Rose, 227 

Moths, 228 

Steps of Ghosts, , 229 

The Strange Organist, 231 

• 8 



WESTERN WINDOWS 



WESTERN WINDOWS. 

Crimsoning the woodlands dumb and hoary, 
Bleak with long November winds and rains, 

Lo, at sunset, breathes a sudden glory. 
Breaks a fire on all the western panes! 

Eastward far I see the restless splendor 

Shine through many a window-lattice bright ; 

Nearer all the farmhouse gables render 

Flame for flame and melt in breathless light. 

Many a mansion, many a cottage lowly, 
Lost in radiance, palpitate the same 

At the touch of Beauty strange and holy. 
All transfigured in the evening flame. 

Luminous, within — a marvellous vision — 
Things familiar half-unreal show ; 

Li the effluence of Land Elysian, 
Every bosom feels a holier glow. 
11 



WESTERN WINDOWS. 



Faces lose, as at some wondrous portal, 

Earthly masks, and heavenly features wear ; 

Many a mother, like a saint immortal, 
Folds her chiid, a halo'd angel fair. 



12 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 

JUNE, MDCCCLXIV. 

The bees in the clover are making honey, and I am 

making my hay: 
The air is fresh, I seem to draw a young man's breath 

to-day. 

The bees and I are alone in the grass: the air is so 
very still 

I hear the dam, so loud, that shines beyond the sul- 
len mill. 

Yes, the air is so still that I hear almost the sounds 

I can not hear — 
That, when no other sound is plain, ring in my empty 

ear: 

The chime of striking scythes, the fall of the heavy 
swaths they sweep — 
13 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 

They ring about me, resting, wlien I waver lialf 



So still I am not sure if a cloud, low down, unseen 

there be, 
Or if something brings a rumor home of the cannon 

so far from me : 

Far away in Virginia where Joseph and Grant, I know, 
Will tell them what I meant when first I had my 
mowers go ! 

Joseph he is my eldest one, the only boy of my three 
Whose shadow can darken my door again, and lighten 
my heart for me. 

Joseph he is my eldest — how his scythe was striking 

ahead ! 
William was better at shorter heats, but Jo in the 

long-run led. 

William he was my youngest; John, between them, 

I somehow see. 
When my eyes are shut, with a little board at his 

head in Tennessee. 
14 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 

But William came home one morning early, from Get- 
tysburg, last July 

(The mowing was over already, although the only 
mower was I:) 

William, my captain, came home for good to his mother ; 

and I '11 be bound 
We were proud and cried to see the flag that wrapt 

his coffin around; 

For a company from the town came up ten miles with 

music and gun: 
It seem'd his country claim'd him then — as well as 

his mother — her son. 

But Joseph is yonder with Grant to-day, a thousand 

miles or near, 
And only the bees are abroad at work with me in the 

clover here. 

Was it a murmur of thunder I heard that humm'd 

again in the air? 
Vet, may be, the cannon are sounding now their 
Onward to Richmond there. 
15 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 

But under the beech by the orchard, at noon, I sat 

an hour it would seem — 
It may be I slept a minute, too, or waver'd into a 

dream. 

For I saw my boys, across the field, by the flashes 

as they went. 
Tramping a steady tramp as of old with the strength 

in their arms unspent; 

Tramping a steady tramp, they moved like soldiers 

that march to the beat 
Of music that seems, a part of themselves, to rise 

and fall with their feet; 

Tramping a steady tramp, they came with flashes of 

silver that shone, 
Every step, from their scythes that rang as if they 

needed the stone — 

(The field is wide and heavy with grass) — and, com 

ing toward me they beam'd 
With a shine of light in their faces at once, and — 

surely I must have dream'd ! 

16 



THE MOWER IN OHIO. 

For I sat alone in the clover-field, the bees were 

working ahead. 
There were three in my vision — remember, old man: 

and what if Joseph were dead! 

But I hope that he and Grant (the flag above them 

both, to boot,) 
Will go into Richmond together, no matter which is 

ahead or afoot! 

Meantime alone at the mowing here — an old man 

somewhat gray — 
I must stay at home as long as I can, making myself 

the hay. 

And so another round — the quail in the orchard 

whistles blithe — 
But first I'll d.'ink at the spring below, and whet 

again my scythe. 
2 17 



READINa THE MILESTONE. 

I stopp'd to read the Milestone here, 
A laggard school-boy, long ago; 

I came not far — my home was near — 
But ah, how far I long'd to go! 

Behold a number and a name, 

A finger, Westward, cut in stone : 

The vision of a city came. 

Across the dust and distance shown. 

Around me lay the farms asleep 

Tn hazes of autumnal air, 
And sounds that quiet loves to keep 

Were heard, and heard not, every -where. 

I read the Milestone, day by day: 
I yearn'd to cross the barren bound, 

To know the golden Far-away, 

To walk the new Enchanted Ground! 
18 



THE PIONEER'S CHIMNEY. 

We leave the highway here a little space — 
(So much of life is near so much of death : ) 
The chimney of a dwelling still is seen, 
A little mound of ruin, overgrown 
With lithe, long grasses and domestic weeds, 
Among the apple-trees (the ancestors 
Of yonder orchard fruited from their boughs) — 
The apple-trees that, when the place was rough 
With the wild forests, and the land was new, 
He planted: one, departed long ago. 
But still a presence unforgotten here. 
Who bless'd me in my boyhood, with his hands 
That seem'd like one's anointed. Gentle, strong, 
And warm'd with sunny goodness, warming all, 
Was he, familiar by the reverend name 
Of Uncle Gardner in our neighborhood : 
His love had grown to common property 
By ties that Nature draws from man to man. 
And so at last had claim'd the bond of blood. 
19 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

He was an elder in the land, and lield 
His first proprietary right, it seem'd. 
From Nature's self; for, in an earlier day, 
He came with others, who of old had reach'd 
Their neighbor hands across New England farms, 
Over the mountains to this Western Land — 
A journey long and slow and perilous, 
With many hardships and the homesick look 
Of wife and children backward ; chose his farm, 
Builded his house, and clear'd, by hard degrees, 
Acres that years ago were meadows broad. 
Or wheat-fields rocking in the summer heat. 

His children grew, and son and daughter pass'd 
Into the world that grew around, and some 
Into that world which evermore unseen 
Is still about us, and the graveyard where 
Their bodies slept (a few half sinking stones, 
A stranger's eyes would hardly see them, show 
Seventy rods yonder in the higher ground) 
Gave still a tenderer title, year by year. 
To the dear places earn'd by earlier toil. 



Meanwhile the years that made these woody valea 
h ( 
20 



An eager commonwealth of crowding men 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

Pass'd, one by one, and every thing was changed; 
And he, whose limbs were like the hickory's when 
He came with life's wrought vigor here, was changed : 
He heard the voice that tells men they are old. 
Yet not the less he moved his usual rounds, 
Walk'd his old paths; not idle, sweated still 
"With scythe or sickle in the hay or wheat; 
Follow'd his plow when in the April sun 
The blackbird chatter'd after and the crow 
Far-off look'd anxious for the new-dropp'd corn; 
And gave the winter hours their services, 
"With sheep abroad on slopes that, slanting south, 
Breathe off the snow and show a warming green, 
With cattle penn'd at home or bounding flail: 
So, not forgetting social offices 
Throughout all seasons, (gaining so the love 
That went acknowledged in his common name,) 
He, like the Servant in the Parable, 
Doing his duty, waited for his Lord. 

The chimney shows enough for memory, 
And, it may be, a stranger passing close, 
If thoughtful, well might think a tender thought 
Of vanish'd fireside faces, in his dream 
Suddenly lighted by a vanish'd fire. 
21 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

And should the apple-trees that linger, loth 
To end their blossoming, attract his eye. 
Their fragrance would not pass unrecognized 
For deeper gifts than fragrance. He is gone 
Who planted them, and thirty years are gone. 
Now, if you look a quarter-mile away. 
Beyond the toll-gate and its lifted sweep, 
You see a prouder house — not new nor old — 
Beneath whose later roof no spirit dwells 
That had its tenure here: a stransrer holds 

a 

The secondary ownership of law. 

It is a story, common though it seem. 
Tender and having pathos for the heart 
Which knows, but will not know, that he who 

says 
"My own," and looks to-day on willing fields, 
And sets his family tree in trusted ground. 
To-morrow hears another answer "Mine." 
Listen, if you will listen. It is hard 
To go an alien from familiar doors 
When we are young, to wrestle where we go, 
And win or lose exulting — we are strong; 
But it is pitiful when weak and old. 
When only for the near in life we seek, 
22 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

And heaven, yearn'd after, is not thouglit of far, 
To lose our shelter and to want for rest. 

Of Uncle Gardner's children three were dead — 
Yonder they lie. Their mother and two with him 
(Two youngest : one a boy of fourteen years, 
His latest child — a girl three years beyond) 
Breathed in his close, contented atmosphere; 
An elder daughter, wedded years before, 
Lived far away in watery Michigan; 
His eldest son — and the first-born of all — 
Thrived as a merchant in the city near, 
Had thriven, at least, or so 'twas said, and he 
For some keen chance had got the old man's will 
To be his bond. The father pledged the land — 
Willing for the grown man, yet for the boy 
And for his girl at home regretfully. 
Deeming the chance a rash one. From that day 
He wrought his daily labors ill-content. 
And with a trouble in his countenance. 
That would not put a false face on his heart. 
To things familiar came a subtle change. 
The brook that long ago, companion-like, 
Had grown acquainted with his solitude, 
And, later, made him music when he walk'd 
23 



THE pioneer's CHIMNEY. 

And led his cliildren tlirougli the pasture-ground 
Up to tlie haying or the harvest-gap, 
A noisy mimic of their prattled words, 
Now seem'd to lift a stranger's face at him, 
Wondering why he came there, who he was. 
Or murmur'd, with a long and low lament. 
Some undercurrent of an exile's song 
That is not on his lips but in his heart. 
Nothing was as it had been: something vague, 
That Present of the Future which is born 
Within the bosom, whispering what will be, 
Met him and follow'd him, and would not cease 
To meet and follow him: it seem'd to say 
" The place that knew you shall know you no more.' 
And oftentimes he saw the highway stirr'd 
With slowly-journeying dust, and, passing slow. 
The many who forever in our land 
Were going farther, driven by goads unseen, 
Or not content and looking for the new; 
And then he thought of how in those dear days 
He, too, had ventured, and again he saw 
With steadfast eyes forgotten faces, known 
When he was young, and others dear to him 
From whom he parted with regret but firm 
In the strong purposes which build the world: 
24 



THE pioneer's CHIMNEY. 

Thought of his consolation — she most dear 
Was with him, they most helpless with him, too, 
For whom he sought a newer world of hope : 
"But I am old," he murmur'd, '-she is old," 
And saw his hand was shaken like his thouo-ht 

o • 

Such were his troubled fancies. When he slept, 
In his slow dreams — with lagging team, the last 
Of many that in yonder meadows foal'd 
Grew and became a portion of the place — 
Journeying far away, and never more 
Keaching his journey's goal, (a weary road 
Whose end came only with the waking day,) 
He seem'd to pass, and always 'twas the same: 
Through new-built villages of joyous homes. 
Homes not for him, by openings recent-made, 
But not for him, by cultivated farms 
Of other men — and always 'twas the same. 
Then, when he woke and found the dream a dream, 
And through his window shone the sun and brought 
The faint rich smell of the new-tassel'd corn, 
More fragrant from the dew that weigh'd it down, 
He murmur'd of his fields — " For other men ; 
They are not mine. The mortgage will be closed ; 
The mortgage goes wherever I shall go." 



to' 

25 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

So pass'd the quarter of a year, and so 
The old man, burden'd with his little world, 
Felt it upon his shoulders, stooping down, 
Bent more with this than every other year. 
And summer pass'd to autumn: in his door 
He sat and saw the leaves, his friends of old. 
Audible in the sunshine, falling, falling. 
With a continuous rustle — music fit 
For his accompanying thought. At last it came, 
The blow that reach'd his heart before it came. 
For all was lost: the son whose risk he placed 
Both on his children's home and on his heart 
Was ruin'd, as the careless worldlings say — 
Buin'd indeed, it seem'd, for on his brain 
The quick stroke flash'd: for many years the son 
Breathed in a world in which he did not live. 

The old man took the blow but did not fall — 
Its weight had been before. The land was sold, 
The mortgage closed. That winter, cold and long, 
(Permitted by the hand that grasp'd his all 
That winter pass'd he here,) beside his fire. 
He talk'd of moving in the spring, he talk'd 
(While the shrill sap cried in a troubled blaze) 
Like one whose life was not all broken down, 
26 



THE pioneer's CHIMNEY. 

Cheerfully garrulous, with words that show 
False witnesses of hope and seeming strength 
When these are gone and come not. In the spring, 
When the first warmth had brooded every-where, 
He sat beside his doorway in that warmth, 
Watching the wagons on the highway pass, 
With something of the memory of his dread 
In the last autumn; and he fell asleep. 
Perhaps within his sleep he seem'd again 
Journeying far away for evermore, 
Leaving behind the homes of other men, 
Seeking a newer home for those he loved, 
A pioneer again. And so he slept — 

And still he sleeps : his grave is one of those. 

His wife soon joined his sleep beside him there. 

Their children Time has taken and the world. 

The chimney shows enough for memory. 
The graves remain; all other trace is gone, 
Except the apple-trees that linger, loth 
To end their blossoming. In restless moods 
I used to wander hither oftentimes, 
27 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

And often linger'd till the twiliglit came, 
Toucli'd with the melancholy breathed by change; 
And something in the atmosphere, I thought, 
Remain'd of hours and faces that had been. 
Then, thinking of the Past and all I knew 
And all remember'd of it — most of him 
Whose vanish'd fireside blazed so near me here — 
My fancy, half unconscious, shaped the things 
Which had been, and among the quiet trees 
The chimney from its burial mound arose; 
The ruin'd farm-house grew a quiet ghost — 
Its walls were thrill'd with murmur-music, humm'd 
By inner voices scarcely heard without; 
And from the window breathed a vaporous light 
Into the outer mist of vernal dark, 
And lo ! a crowd of sparks against the sky 
Sprang suddenly, at times, and from the wood 
(The wood? — no wood was here for forty years!) 
Bark'd the shrill fox and all the stars hung bright. 
Till, busy with the silence far away, 
(And whether heard or heard not hardly known,) 
First indistinct, then louder, nearer still. 
And ever louder, grew a tremulous roar; 
Then, sudden, flared a torch from out the night, 
And, eastward half-a-mile, the shimmering train 
28 



THE PIONEER S CHIMNEY. 

Hurried across the darkness and the dream, 
And all my fantasy was gone, at once — 
The lighted window and the fireside sound: 
I saw the heap of ruin underfoot, 
And overhead the leaves were jarr'd awake. 
Whispering a moment of the flying fright, 
And far away the whistle, like a cry, 
Shrill in the darkness reach'd the waiting town. 
29 



FIRE BEFORE SEED.* 

How bright to-night lies all the Yale, 
AYhere Autumn scatter'd harvest gold 

And, far off, humm'd the rumbling flail 
When dark autumnal noons were cold ! 

The fields put on a mask of fire, 

Forever changing, in the dark ; 
Lo, yonder upland village spire 

Flashes in air a crimson spark ! 

I see the farm-house roofs arise. 
Among their guardian elms asleep : 

Redly the flame each window dyes. 

Through vines that chill and leafless creep. 

* It is customary in some portions of the "West to rake the 
last year's stubble of corn into windrows and burn it preparatory 
to breaking the ground in Spring for a new planting. This burn- 
ing is generally done after nightfall: its eflect on the landscape 
these lines were intended to describe. 
30 



FIRE BEFORE SEED. 

Along the lonely lane, that goes 
Darkening beyond the dusky hill, 

Amid the light the cattle doze 
And sings the 'waken'd April rill. 

The mill by rocks is shadow'd o'er, 
But, overhead, the shimmering trees 

Stand sentinels of the rocky shore 

And bud with fire against the breeze ! 

Afar the restless ripple shakes 

Arrows of splendor through the wood, 
Then all its noisy water breaks 

Away in glimmering solitude. 

Gaze down into the bottoms near, 

Where all the darkness broadly warms 

The priests who guard the fires appear 
Gigantic shadows, pigmy forms ! 

The enchanted Spring shall here awake 
With harvest hope among her flowers ; 

And nights of holy dew shall make 
The morning smile for toiling hours. 
31 



FIRE BEFORE SEED. 

Behold the Sower's sacrifice 

Upon the altars of the Spring ! — 

O dead Past, into fiame arise : 
New seed into the earth we fling ! 
32 



KING'S TAVERN. 

Far-off spires, a mist of silver, shimmer from the 

far-off town; 
Haunting here the dreary turnpike stands the tavern, 

crumbling down. 

Half-a-mile before you pass it, half-a-mile when you 

are gone, 
Like a ghost it comes to meet you, ghost-like still it 

follows on. 

Never more the sign- board, swinging, flaunts its 
gilded wonder there: 

"Philip King" — a dazzled harvest shock'd in west- 
ern sunset air! 



Never, as with nearer tinkle through the dust of 

long ago. 
Creep the Pennsylvania wagons up the twilight — 

white and slow. 

83 



KING S TAVERN. 

With a low, monotonous tliunder, yonder flies the 

liurrying train — 
Hark, tlie echoes in the quarry! — in the woodland 

lost again ! 

Never more the friendly windows, red with warmth 

and Christian light, 
Breathe the traveler's benediction to his brethren in 

the night. 

Old in name The Haunted Tavern holds the barren 

rise alone — 
Standing high in air deserted, ghost-like long itself 

has grown. 

Not a pane in any window — many a ragged corner- 
bit: 

Boys, the strolling exorcisors, gave the ghost their 
notice — "Quit." 

Jamestown-weeds have close invaded, year by year, 

the bar-room door, 
Where, within, in damp and silence gleams the lizard 

on the floor. 

34 



KING S TAVERN. 

Through the roof the drear Novembers trickle down 

the midnight slow; 
In the Summer's warping sunshine green with moss 

the shingles grow. 

Yet in Maying wind the locust, sifting sunny blossom, 

snows, 
And the rose-vine still remembers some dear face 

that loved the rose: 

Climbing up a Southern casement, looking in neg- 
lected air; 

And, in golden honey-weather, careful bees are hum- 
mino; there. 

In the frozen moon at midnight some have heard, 

when all was still — 
Nothing, I know! A ghostly silence keeps the 

tavern on the hill! 
35 



FIRES IN ILLINOIS. 



How bright this weird autumnal eve — 
While the wild twilight clings around, 

Clothing the grasses every-where, 
With scarce a dream of sound ! 



The high horizon's northern line, 
With many a silent-leaping spire. 

Seems a dark shore — a sea of flame — 
Quick, crawling waves of fire ! 

I stand in dusky solitude, 

October breathing low and chill. 

And watch the far-off blaze that leaps 
At the wind's wayward will. 

These boundless fields, behold, once more, 
Sea-like in vanish'd summers stir; 

From vanish'd autumns comes the Fire — 
A lone, bright harvester ! 
3G 



FIRES IN ILLINOIS. 

I see wide terror lit before — 

Wild steeds, fierce herds of bison bere, 
And, blown before the flying flame, 

The flying-footed deerl 

Long trains (with shaken bells, that moved 
Along red twilights sinking slow) 

Whose wheels grew weary on their way. 
Far westward, long agoj 

Lone wagons bivouack'd in the blaze. 
That, long ago, stream'd wildly past; 

Faces from that brigh,t solitude 
In the hot gleam aghast I 

A glare of faces like a dream, 

No history after or before, 
Inside the horizon with the flames, 

The flames — nobody more ! 

That vision vanishes in me. 

Sudden and swift and fierce and bright j 
Another gentler vision fills 

The solitude, to-night: 
87 



FIRES IN ILLINOIS. 

The horizon lightens every-where, 
The sunshine rocks on windy maize ; 

Hark, every-where are busy men, 
And children at their plays ! 

Far church-spires twinkle at the sun, 
From villages of quiet born, 

And, far and near, and every-where. 
Homes stand amid the corn. 

No longer driven by wind, the Fire 
Makes all the vast horizon glow, 

But, numberless as the stars above, 
The windows shine below ! 
38 



RIDING TO VOTE. 

THE OLD DEMOCRAT IX THE WEST. 

Yonder the bleak old Tavern stands — the faded sign 

before, 
That years ago a setting sun and banded harvest 

bore ; 
The Tavern stands the same to-day — the sign you 

look upon 
Has glintings of the dazzled sheaves, but. nothing of 

the sun. 

In Jackson's days a gay young man, with spirit 

hale and blithe, 
And form like the young hickory, so tough and tall 

and lithe, 
I first remember coming up — we came a wagon-load, 
A dozen for Old Hickory— this rough November 

road. 

39 



RIDING TO VOTE. 



All ! forty years — they help a man, you see, in get- 
ting gray; 

They can not take the manly soul, that makes a man, 
away ! 

It 's forty years, or near : to-day I go to vote once 
more ; 

Here, half a mile away, we see the crowd about the 
door. 

My boys, in Eighteen Sixty — what ! my boys ? my 

men, I mean ! 
(No better men nor braver souls in flesh-aud-blood 

are seen!) 
One twenty-six, one twenty-three, rode with their 

father then : 
The ballot-box remembers theirs — my vote I '11 try 

again ! 

The ballot-box remembers theirs, the country well 

might know — 
Though in a million only two for little seem to go ; 
But, somehow, when my ticket slipp'd I dream'd of 

Jackson's day: 
The land, I thought, has need of One whose will will 

find a wayl 

4a 



RIDING TO VOTE. 



0- 



'jSe did not waver when the need had call'd for 
steadfast thought — 

The word he spoke made plain the deed that lay be- 
hind it wrought; " 

And while I mused the Present fell, and, breathing 
back the Past, 

Again it seem'd the hale young man his vote for 
Jackson cast ! 

Thank God it was not lost ! — my vote I did not cast 

in vain ! 
I go alone to drop my vote — the glorious vote again ; 
Alone — where three together fell but one to-day 

shall fall; 
But though I go alone to-day, one voice shall speak 

for all I 

For when our men, awaking quick, from hearth and 
threshold came. 

Mine did not say, "Another day!" but started like 
a flame ; 

I '11 vote for them as well as me ; they died as sol- 
diers can. 

But in my vote their voices each shall claim the right 
of man. 

4 41 



RIDING TO VOTE. 

The elder left his wife and child — my vote for these 

shall tell ; 
The younger's sweet-heart has a claim — I '11 vote for 

her as well ! 
Yes ! for the myriad speechless tongues, the myriad 

offer'd lives, 
The desolation at the heart of orphans and of wives ! 

I go to give my vote alone — I curse your shameless 

shame 
Who fight for traitors here at home in Peace's holy 

name ! 
I go to give my vote alone, but even while I do, 
I vote for dead and living, all — the living dead and 

you! 

See yonder tree beside the field, caught in the sud- 
den sough. 

How conscious of its strength it leans, how straight 
and steadfast now ! 

If Lincoln bends (for all, through him, my vote I 
mean to cast) — 

What winds have blown ! what storms he 's known ! 
the hickory 's straight at last ! 

November, 18G4. 

42 



LAND IN CLOUD. 

Above tlie sunken sun the clouds are fired 
With a dark splendor: the enchanted hour 
Works momentary miracles in the sky ; 
Weird shadows take from fancy what they lack 
For semblance, and I sco a boundless plain, 
A mist of sun and sheaves in boundless air, 
Gigantic shapes of Reapers moving slow 
In some new harvest : so I can but dream 
Of my great Land, that takes its Morning star 
Out of the dusky Evening of the East, 
My Land, that lifted into vision gleams 
Misty and vast, a boundless plain afar, 
(Like yonder fading fantasy of cloud,) 
With shadowy Reapers moving, vague and slow, 
In some wide hardest of the days to be — 
A mist of Sim and sheaves in boundless air ! 
43 



su]srsHi:tTE and firelight. 



ROSE AND ROOT. 

A FABLE OF TWO LIVES. 

The Rose aloft in sunny air, 
Beloved alike by bird and bee, 

Takes for the dark Root little care, 
That toils below it ceaselessly. 

I put my question to the flower : 

" Pride of the Summer, garden-queen. 

Why livest thou thy little hour ?" 
And the Rose answer'd, " I am seen." 

I put my question to the Root — 
" I mine the earth content," it said, 

" A hidden miner underfoot ; 
I know a Rose is overhead/' 
47 



THE SUNSHINE OF SHADOWS. 

ON A rnOTOGRAPn OF THREE CHILDREN. 

Three cliildren's shadow- faces look 
From my familiar picture-book: 
Far from their father's threshold sweet 
I found them in a noisy street. 

"Dear children, come with me," I said, 
"And make my home your own instead; 
Your gentle looks, your tender words. 
Shall mate the sunbeams, charm the birds." 

They came, but never lip is stirr'd 
With merry laugh or mirthful word: 
As in a trance at me they look 
Whene'er I ope their prisoning book. 

But as I gaze, in revery bound, 
The silence overflows with sound: 
48 



THE SUNSHINE OF SHADOWS. 



From garden haunts of birds and bees 
Hum voices tbrough the blossoming trees. 



Like waters beard wben breezes blow, 
Light laughters waver to and fro; 
Then, when my dream is gone, I say 
"Some wind has blown the sound away." 

For the light breeze, alighting brief, 
Turns with its sudden wings the leaf, 
And, like a passing sunshine, they 
Seem so to shout and fly awayl 
5 49 



HIGHER TENANTS. 

Apteh Winter fires were ended, and tlie last spark, 

vanishing 
From the embers on our hearthstone, flew into the 

sky of spring: 

In the night-time, in the morning — when the air was 
hush'd around — 

Throbbing vaguely on the silence, came a dull, mys- 
terious sound: 

Like the sultry hum of thunder, at the sullen close 

of day, 
Out of clouds that brood and threaten on the horizon 

far away. 

"'Tis," I said, "the April thunder," and I thought 

of flowers that spring. 
And of trees that stand in blossom, and of birds that 

fly and sing. 

60 



HIGHER TENANTS. 

But the sound, repeated often — nearer, more familiar 
grown — 

From our chimney seem'd descending, and the swal- 
low's wings were known. 

Where the lithe flames leap'd and lighten'd, charm 

of host and cheer of guest. 
There the emigrant of Summer chose its homestead, 

huilt its nest. 

Then I dream'd of poets dwelling, like the swallow, 

long ago, 
Overhead in dusky places ere their songs were 

heard below; 

Overhead in humble attics, ministers of higher 
things : 

Underneath were busy people, overhead were heaven- 
ly wings! 

And I thought of homely proverbs that on simple 

lips had birth. 
Born of gentle superstitions at old firesides of the 

earth : 

61 



HIGHER TENANTS. 

How, where'er the swallow builded under human 

roofs its nest, 
Something holier, purer, higher, in the house became 

a guest; 

Peace, or Love, or Health, or Fortune — something 

Prosperous, from the air 
'Lighting with the wings of swallows, breathed 

divine possession there. 

"Friendly gods," I said, "descending, make their 

gentler visits so, 
Fill the air with benedictions — songs above and 

songs below!" 

Then I murmur'd, "Welcome, swallow; I, your land- 
lord, stand content: 

Even if song were not sufficient, higher Tenants pay 
your rent!" 

62 



NEW GRASS. 

Along the sultry city street, 

Faint subtile breaths of fragrance meet 

Me, wandering unaware 
(In April warmth, while yet the sun 
For Spring no constant place has won) 

By many a vacant square. 

Whoever reads these lines has felt 

That breath whose long-lost perfumes melt 

The spirit — newly found 
While the sweet, banished families 
Of earth's forgotten sympathies 

Rise fi-om the sweating ground. 

It is the subtile breath of grass ; 
And as I pause, or lingering pass, 

With half-shut eyes, behold ! 
Bright from old baptisms of dew 
Fresh meadows burst upon my view, 

And new becomes the old ! 
53 



NEW GRASS. 

Old longings (Pleasure kissing Pain), 
Old visions visit me again — 

Life's quiet deeps are stirr'd : 
The fountain-heads of memory flow 
Through channels dry so long ago, 

With music long unheard. 

I think of pastures, evermore 
Greener than any hour before, 

Where cattle wander slow, 
Large-iiddered in the sun, or chew 
The cud content in shadows new, 

Or, shadows, homeward low. 

I dream of prairies dear to me : 
Afar in town I seem to see 

Their widening miles arise. 
Where, like the butterfly anear. 
Far off in sunny mist the deer, 

That seems no larger, flies. 

Thy rural lanes, Ohio, come 
Back to me, grateful with the hum 

Of every thing that stirs : 
Dear places, sadden' d by the years. 
Lost to my sight send sudden tears. 

Their secret messengers. 
54 



NEW GRASS. 

I think of paths a-swarm with wings 
Of bird and bee — all lovely things 

From sun or sunny clod ; 
Of play-grounds where the children play, 
And fear not Time will come to-day, 

And feel the warming sod. 

New grass : it grows by cottage doors, 
In orchards hush'd with bloom, by shores 

Of streams that flow as green. 
On hill-slopes white with tents or sheep, 
And where the sacred mosses keep 

The holy dead unseen. 

It grows o'er distant graves I know — 
Sweet grass ! above them greener grow, 

And guard them tenderly ! 
My brother's, not three summers green ; 
My sister's — new-made, only seen 

Through far-off tears by me ! 

It grows on battle-fields — alas ! 
Old battle-fields are lost in grass ; 

'New battles wait the new : 
Hark, is it the living warmth I hear ? 
The cannon far or bee anear ? 

The bee and cannon too ! 

Washington, April, 18G3. 

55 



OUTGOING. 

A WRATHFUL dust, the spirit of the town, 

Follows me, loth to let me free, unti4 

I come to this close lane whose gateway leads 

From the low, heated city to the peace, 

The high domestic qnietjof the hills. 

It is a narrow lane (on either side 

A wall: the left of trees — the right of stone, 

Roof 'd with a hedge) and hides me from the dust 

That like a baffled hunter flies beyond. 

And welcomes me caressingly with airs 

Breathed from a myriad things that hold the breath 

Of Summer — weeds that blossom, thorns that flower; 

And blesses me with dear and gentle sounds, 

(That, mingled, make but quiet felt the more,) 

And dewy sights that, seen however oft, 

Make the eye always new and can not tire. 

At the cool opening of this guardless lane 
I think the tender Mother whom I love, 
56 



OUTGOINa. 

Awaiting, whispers with her brooding voice — 
Her single, gentle voice that is not heard 
By the deaf ear but in the hearkening heart — 
"Welcome, child come back! for all the day 
I long'd for thee, my child, and all the day 
I dream'd thee tost in yonder barren town, 
And sent my messengers to call for thee. 
Didst thou not hear a bird beside thy pane 
A tender moment — hear but hardly hear? 
Didst thou not see a bee that came and went, 
Striking thy window — see but hardly see? 
Didst thou not feel a wind that turn'd thy page, 
Intruding, playful, like a timid child 
That fears repulses — feel but hardly feel? 
Vexed by the flying leaf, thy blessing held 
The breeze that linger'd, but thou didst not come. 
I fear for thee, too long in yonder town. 
For they forget me there — and wilt not thou? 
But see my welcome; see my open door." 
So with the dear rebuke I enter in. 

The trees in sunset tremble goldenly 
Through all their leaves. I wander gladly down 
Over a bridge across a troubled rill 
(Fluttering from its dark with frighten'd wings) ; 
57 



OUTGOING. 

Beyond, tlie roadway climbs around the liight, 
And, look ! beneath me, with a music heard 
Best in the heart of silence far away, 
A falling fleece of silver, shines the dam : 
Above, the quiet mirror lets the duck 
Float, brooding on its shadow, motionless; 
Below, the shallows glitter every-where 
As if with shoals of hurrying fish that leap 
Over each other noisily in the sun ; 
And, farther down, the greenly-hidden race 
Persuades the seeking eye to wander where. 
Gray through the boughs of sycamore and elm, 
Tremulous with its myriad-moving wheels. 
With sullen thunder stands the busy mill. 
While over all, through azure haze adust, 
Show the thick spires and the bronz'd marble dome, 
Transfigured, far-off, for my memory, 
Made beautiful for my forgetfulness. 
58 



THE BLACKBERRY FARM. 

Nature gives with freest hands 

Richest gifts to poorest lands : 

When the lord has sown his last 

And his field 's to desert pass'd, 

She begins to claim her own, 

And — instead of harvests flown, 

Sunburnt sheaves and golden ears — 

Sends her hardier pioneers ; 

Barbarous brambles, outlaw'd seeds, 

The first families of weeds 

Fearing neither sun nor wind. 

With the flowers of their kind 

(Outcasts of the garden-bound), 

Colonize the expended ground, 

Using (none her right gainsay) 

Confiscations of decay: 

Thus she clothes the barren place, 

Old disgrace, with newer grace. 

Title-deeds, which cover lands 

Ruled and reap'd by buried hands, 
59 



THE BLACKBERRY TARM. 

She — disowning owners old, 
Scorning their "to have and hold" — 
Takes herself; the mouldering fence 
Hides with her munificence ; 
O'er the crumbled gatepost twines 
Her proprietary vines ; 
On the doorstep of the house 
Writes in moss " Anonymous," 
And, that beast and bird may see, 
" This is Public property ;" 
To the bramble makes the sun 
Bearer of profusion: 
Blossom-odors breathe in June 
Promise of her later boon. 
And in August's brazen heat 
Grows the prophecy complete — 
Lo, her largess glistens bright, 
Blackness diamonded with light ! 
Then, behold, she welcomes all 
To her annual festival : 
" Mme the fruit but yours as well," 
Speaks the Mother Miracle ; 
" Rich and poor are welcome ; come, 
Make to-day millennium 
Li my garden of the sun : 

Black and white to me are one. 

GO 



THE BLACKBERET FARM, 

This my freehold use content — 

Here no landlord rides for rent ; 

I proclaim my jubilee, 

In my Black Republic, free. 

Come," she beckons ; " Enter, through 

Gates of gossamer, doors of dew 

(Lit with Summer's tropic fire), 

My Liberia of the brier." 

Georgetown Heights, July, 1863. 



THE MORNING STREET. 

Alone I walk the Morning Street, 
Fill'd with the silence vague and sweet : 
All seems as strange, as still, as dead 
As if unnumber'd years had fled, 
Letting the noisy Babel lie 
Breathless and dumb against the sky ; 
The light wind walks with me alone 
Where the hot day flame-like was blown. 
Where the wheels roar'd, the dust was beat: 
The dew is in the Morning Street. 

Where are the restless throngs that pour 
Along this mighty corridor 
While the noon shines ? — the hurrying crowd 
Whose footsteps make the city loud — 
The myriad faces — ^hearts that beat 
No more in the deserted street ? 
Those footsteps in their dreaming maze 
Cross thresholds of forgotten days ; 
Those faces brighten from the years 
62 



THE MORNING STREET. 

In rising suns long set in tears ; 

Those hearts — far in the Past they beat, 

Unheard within the Morning Street. 

A city of the world's gray prime, 
Lost in some desert far from Time, 
Where noiseless ages, gliding through. 
Have only sifted sand and dew — 
Yet a mysterious hand of man 
Lying on all the haunted plan. 
The passions of the human heart 
Quickening the marble breast of Art — 
Were not more strange to one who first 
Upon its ghostly silence burst 
Than this vast quiet where the tide 
Of Life, upheav'd on either side. 
Hangs trembling, ready soon to beat 
With human waves the Morning Street. 

Ay, soon the glowing morning flood 
Breaks through the charmed solitude : 
This silent stone, to music won, 
Shall murmur to the rising sun ; 
The busy place, in dust and heat. 
Shall rush with wheels and swarm with feet ; 
63 



THE MORNING STREET. 

The Arachne-threads of Purpose stream 
Unseen within the morning gleam ; 
The life shall move, the death be plain ; 
The bridal throng, the funeral train, 
Together, face to face shall meet 
And pass within the Morning Street. 
04 



THE LOST HORIZON, 

I STOOD at evening in the crimson air : 

The trees shook off their dusky twilight glow ; 

The wind took up old burdens of despair, 

And moan'd like Atlas with his world of woe. 

Like the great circle of a bronzed ring, 

That clasp'd the vision of the vanish'd day, 

I saw the vague horizon vanishing 
Around me into darkness, far away. 

Then, while the night came ftxst with cloudy roar, 
Lo, all about me, rays of hearths imknown 

Sprang from the gloom with light unseen before, 
And made a warm horizon of their own. 

I sigh'd ; " The wanderer in the desert sees 
Strange ghosts of summer lands arising, sweet 

With restless waters, green with gracious trees 
Whose shadows beckon welcome to his feet. 
6 65 



THE LOST HORIZON. 

" For erst, where now the desert far away 
Stretches a wilderness of hopeless sand, 

Clasping fair fields and sunburnt harvests lay 
The heavenly girdles of a fruitful land." 

I thought of a sweet mirage now no more : 

Warm windows radiant with a dancing flame- 
Dear voices heard within a happy door — 
A face that to the darkness, lighted, came. 

N'o hearth of mine was waiting, near or far ; 

No threshold for my coming footstep yearn'd 
To touch its slumber ; no warm window star, 

The tender Venus, to my longing burn'd. 

The darken'd windows slowly lost tVeir fire. 

But shimmer'd with the ghostly ember-light : 

A wanderer, with old embers of desire. 

The lost horizon held me in the night. 
66 



ANTAEUS. 

AwEAET of the restless will to know 

Invisible heights, which men have sigh'd to reach, 

And walk the deep sea, without faith, alone, 

I thought of that lithe wrestler, born of Earth, 

Who strove with him the hydra's conqueror, 

Losing and winning. Lifted into air 

He swoon'd defeated : touching then the sod. 

His blood sprang full of wings and he arose, 

The heaving pulses of the hills his own. 

The sinews of the deserts in his thighs. 

And, when I fell asleep at middle night. 

My thought becoming portion of my sleep, 

I wander'd into Libyan solitudes 

(For so a dream confuses place and time) 

And to me spake the giant of the Waste : 

" I am Antaeus, darling of the Earth. 

Whatever makes me stronger, man, is thine ; 

I am a man, but these ungirded arms, 

Forever striving, writhe forever more. 

Wrestling with gods and godlike challengers. 

Born of the Earth, I cling to her for strength, 
67 



ANTAEUS. 

Her life is mine and mine is hers forever ; 
I feel my thews alone when standing fast, 
A brother of the mountains, at their feet. 
And dare to know my conquerors : they dwell 
Aloft in myriad shapes and essences ; 
Sometimes they wait and seize me, unaware. 
In whirlwinds of white frenzy, and I fall 
"Weak as a leaf whose last breath is gone out 
In the first breath of Autumn : waking, then, 
(Like one who, falling, wakens from his dream,) 
I see a winged giant near the sun. 
I know my place, my victors know their own : 
Theirs the invisible ^ther, mine below 
Where the Earth breathes her breath, a breath of 

Life, 
And if perchance I clasp them in my arms 
Victorious here, I claim them as my own. 
Servants of men and winged messengers. 

*' I am Antaeus, darling of the Earth, 
Wrestler with gods and godlike challengers. 
But, oftentimes, aweary of my strife, 
And of the clasp of those invisible arms. 
Ready to catch and lift me up in swoon, 
The death-in-life that I alone can know. 
And weary of the wrestlers coming still 

With challenges in the air, for rest I turn 

68 



ANTAEUS. 

To the dear bosom of my Mother Earth : 
She, like a mother, holds me near her heart ; 
She, like a mother, kisses me asleep 
On loving pillows hush'd for harmless dreams ; 
She, like a mother, with a mother's voice 
At morning wakens me. Dear Mother Earth, 
Dearest and tenderest Mother, quick with love, 
Throbbing with vigor, full of gentleness, 
I give myself to thee, and thou dost give 
Thyself to me again ; thy weary child. 
Asleep upon thy bosom, wakens strong, 
For thou awakest in my heart anew, 
Kising immortal in my mortal strength." 

It was a voice and pass'd, as voices pass 
From dreams but leave a wake of sound — a form 
And vanish' d, leaving something for the sight, 
Shadowy and vast, the shadow of a shade ; 
And I awoke, and o'er my head a vine 
Bronzed with an early splendor, to and fro 
A playful breeze within my window caught ; 
I heard the noise of morning ; far away 
I saw a ploughman, and a sower near 
Dropp'd corn into his furrows, trusting still 
All golden promises of growing gain ; 
And when I walk'd abroad my shadow made 

A giant's bulk, my sunburnt breast beat full 

61) 



ANTAETTS. 

Of the great blood which moved in giants' veins 
When, as we speak, the Earth itself was young ; 
And, while I saw an engine drag its world, 
And watch'd an eagle in his azure deeps, 
I smiled at the vague medley of my dream. 
But said, " I am Antaeus, born of Earth, 
Her chosen wrestler ; lifted into air 
I swoon defeated: touching then the sod. 
My blood springs full of wings and I am strong,' 
70 



ONE OF TWO. 

Listen and look ! If you listen, you see 

A nest witli a bird in yonder tree : 

Above, in tbe leaves that glitter with May, 

The little half-owner is singing to-day: 

" We are very proud, we are rich, and bless'd- 

Come and look, if you please, at our nest." 

Listen and look ! If you look, you hear 
The sweetest song you have heard for a year ; 
Over the nest on the tremulous spray 
The little half-owner is singing to-day : 
" Soon, in the nest I have asked you to see, 
Listen and look for our family!" 
71 



THE OLD MAN AND THE SPRINO-LEAVES, 

Underneath tli>e beechen tree 
All things fall in love with me ! 
Birds, that sing so sweetly, sung 
Ne'er more sweet when I was young; 
Some sweet breeze, I will not see, 
Steals to kiss me lovingly ; 
All the leaves, so blithe and bright, 
Dancing sing in Maying light 
Over me: "At last, at last, 
He has stolen from the Past." 

"Wherefore, leaves, so gladly mad? 
I am rather sad' than glad. 

" He is the merry child that play'd 
Underneath our beechen shade. 
Years ago ; whom all things bright 
Gladden'd, glad with his delight ! " 
72 



THE OLD MAN AND THE SPRING-LEAVES. 

I am not the child that play'd 

Underneath your beechen shade ; 

I am not the boy ye sung 

Songs to, in lost fairy-tongue. 

He read fairy dreams below, 

Legends leaves and flowers must know; 

He dream'd fairy dreams, and ye 

Changed to fairies, in your glee 

Dancing, singing from the tree ; 

And, awaken'd, fairy-land 

Circled childhood's magic wand ! 

Joy swell'd his heart, joy kiss'd his brow; 

I am following funerals now. 

.Fairy shores from Time depart; 

Lost horizons flush my heart. 

I am not the child that play'd 

Underneath your beechen shade. 

" 'T is the merry child that play'd 
Underneath our beechen shade 
Years ago; whom all things bright 
Loved, made glad with his delight!" 

Ah ! the bright leaves will not know 
That an old man dreams below ! 
7 73 



THE OLD MAN AND THE SPRING-LEAVES. 

No ; they will not hear nor see, 
Clapping their hands at finding me, 
Singing, dancing from their tree ! 
Ah 1 their happy voices steal 
Time away : again I feel, 
While they sing to me apart. 
The lost child come in my heart : 
In the enchantment of the Past, 
The old man is the child at last I 



THE MASTER-KEY. 

Lo ! in my lifted hand a little Key : 

What matter if of iron or of gold, 
My simplest gift, my greatest gift, you see ; 

My life, Beloved, when it is given you hold. 

Enter whene'er you choose : at vesper chime, 
Or when the dewy lips of midnight, dumb. 

Kiss the dumb world. Behold, at morning's prime 
My doors are open, and the many come. 

The many come — it matters little who : 
I guard the place and welcome, evermore. 

My sacred chambers, never closed to you, 
Are closed for them ; I keep the outer door. 

Enter whene'er you will, for every room 
Is yours in being mine. To you unknown. 

This Key knows outward porch and inner gloom. 
Each sky-ward stair, each closet dim and lone. 
75 



THE MASTER-KET. 

Dance in the echoing halls, Beloved, and sing 
Away your heart to every echo sweet 

(The echoes, too, are mine), with flitting wing 
Of buoyant joy and scarce-alighting feet. 

The lighted walls shall answer your delight, 

With floating shapes and summer dreams of Art : 

The Undine springing from her fountain bright, 
The lithe Bacchante with her panting heart. 

Dream in the purple glooms, for dreaming made, 
Where the white angel holds the lily white 

Against her marble bosom (in the shade 

Her wings forgotten), watching day and night. 

What though at times along the floors — unknown. 
Unheard by others — echo phantom feet. 

Weird faces start from veils, faint voices moan ? 
Know Life and Death in every passage meet. 

Open the chambers where the unburied dead. 

While Memory there forever wakeful stands. 

Show their thin ghostly radiance not yet fled — 

Pure breathless faces, tender folded hands. 
76 



THE MASTER-KEY. 

Around the death-beds, hush'd, familiar go, 
And kiss for me the dear familiar clay. 

While the dark funeral tapers waver slow 
And the old death-watch is renew'd for aye. 

"Walk in my secret chapel when you will : 
Lo ! Visions come adown some unseen stair ; 

Sometimes high voices all the silence fill, 
And St. Cecilia's soul is in the air. 



Fear not : the angel Avith the lily white 
There watches, too, as in the dreaming place, 

With wings uplifted in mysterious light 
And some white morning on her lifted face. 

Enter, whene'er you choose, whatever door : 
This Key will open, night and day, the whole. 

Be Love with you, your g uardian evermore ; 
Fear nothing. Take the Master of my Soul. 

77 



PARTING. 

"We clasp our hands : we turn and go, 
Our footsteps echoing years between ; 

We meet again : we hardly knoAv 

These ghosts of loved ones long unseen. 

We clasp our hands : we turn and go, 
Far travellers with strange hours and years ; 

Tl^e face, the form, the voice we know, 
They come not back from time and tears. 

We clasp our hands in loving trust ; 

We send our voices o'er the wave : 
No hand can reach us — from the dust ; 

No voice can find us — in the grave. 



THE MONK'S VISION OF CHRIST. 

Behold, unto a monk the vision grew 

Of Him who waits for all, his loving Lord, 

Him who, all-suffering, all patience knew. 

And wore the crown of Hate for Love's reward. 

The perfect vision of most holy light, 

The Guest of man, unto His follower dear, 

Gave (He who gave the blind his mortal sight) — 
Immortal light to see his Master near. 

Long gazed the monk ; his rapture grew the more : 
Th6 Sight remained, nor grew his soul content, 

Till in his heart a message from the poor. 
Fed by his bounty, whisper'd, and he went. 

His duty called, Christ's own beloved care. 

While, in his room, . Christ seem'd himself to 
stay; 
But Christ was in his heart : so, keeping there 
The vision sweet, he walk'd his Master's way. 
79 



Jle walked His Way, fulfilling, as he went, 
His Master's word and unforgotten will : 

Returning — heaven-rewarded, self-content — 
Lo, the dear vision waited for him still ! 

"Thy Will be done," in many a prayer before 
His heart had lifted. Lo, the Vision said 

(His Will being done who visits still the poor) 
Lowly: " Hadst thou remain'd, I must have fled.' 
80 



THE FIRST FIRE. 

Dearest, to-night upon our Hearth 
See the first fire of Autumn leap : 

Oh, first that we with festal Mirth 
For lo^dng Memory keep ! 

Sweet Fairy of the Fireside, come 

And guard our altar-flame of Home ! 

Without, October breathes the night- 
Cold dews below, cold stars on high ; 

The chilly cricket sees our light 
Reach welcoming arms anigh, 

And sighs to sing his evening song 

In our warm air the winter long. 

Blithe cricket ! welcome, singing, here ! 

I half-recall dead Autumns cold. 
With half-shut eyelids dream, my dear, 

Their sadness vague and old : 
Ha ! the lithe flame leaps red, and tries 
With bursting sparks to blind my eyes ! 
81 



THE FIRST FIRE. 

ni-timed the gay conceit, I know : 
On the dark hills that near ns lie 

(The Shadow will not, need not, go) 
Beneath the Autumnal sky 

Stand battle-tents, that, everywhere, 

Keep ghostly white the moonless air. 

The sentinel walks his lonely beat. 
The soldier slumbers on the ground : 

To one hearth-glimmers far are sweet. 
One dreams of fireside sound ! 

From unforgotten doors they reach, 

Dear sympathies, as dear as speech. 

I think of all the homeless woe, 

The battle- winter long ; 
Alas, the world the hearth's aglow ! 

And, hark ! the cricket's song 
Within ! — the Fairy's minstrel sings 
Away the ghosts of saddest things ! 

The firelight strikes our walls to bloom — 
Home's tender warmth in flower, I deem ; 

And look, the pictures in the room 
Shine in the restless gleam — 

Dear, humble fancies of the heart 

When Art was Love in love with Art : 

82 



THE FIEST FIRE. 

The Torrent lost in rainbow spray ; 

The Flock (its shepherdess the moon) 
Asleep ; the Laureate-Lark of Day 

At home some even in June ; 
The Window, wide for beam and bee : 
A dove within — without, the sea ! 

A Cottage in a sununer land. 

With one whose shadow walks before 
Snow-peaks afar in sunset stand — 

Vines flutter at the door, 
Half-hiding in a sunlit place. 
But cannot hide, a sunlit face ; 

The Mother, with her arms about 
Her baby kiss'd from evening sleep — 

Still rocks the cradle : laugh and shout 
Within her bosom keep 

Glad echoes — on her drooping hair 

A sunbeam, 'lighting, lingers there ; 

The Angel visiting her Child, 
Hovering with a yearning grace, 

Flush'd by the firelight, sweetly mild, 
A mother's brooding face : 

Her wings (the boy has dreaming eyes) 

Show that she came from Paradise ! 

83 



THE FIRST FIRE. 

Blithe dance the flames and blest are we ! 

Without, the funeral of the year 
Is preach'd by every mournful tree ; 

The tree in blossom here 
Knows no lost leaves, no vanish'd wing — 
In vain will Autumn preach to Spring ! 

The cricket sings. His song ? You know : 
"Warm prophecies of dearest days — 

(Horizons lost of long ago 
Crumble within the bkize !) 

Of nights aglow with lights that bless 

And wine from Home's enchanted press- 

The cricket sings ; and, as I dream, 

Your face shows tender smile and tear— 

What angels of the hearth, a-gleam, 
Wingless, have lighted here ? 

Sing, cricket, sing of these to-night — 

The First Fire of our Home is bright ! 

Georgetown, D. C, October, 1861. 
84 



TAKING THE NIGHT-TRAIN. 

A TREMULOUS word, a lingering hand, the burning 
Of restless passion smouldering — so we part ; 

Ah, slowly from the dark the world is turning 
When midnight stars shine in a heavy heart. 

The streets are lighted, and the myriad faces 

Move through the gaslight, and the homesick feet 

Pass by me, homeless; sweet and close embraces 
Charm many a threshold — laughs and kisses sweet. 

From great hotels the stranger throng is streaming, 
The hurrying wheels in many a street are loud ; 

Within the depot, in the gaslight gleaming, 
A glare of faces, stands the waiting crowd. 

The whistle screams; the wheels are rumbling slowly, 
The path before us glides into the light: 

Behind, the city sinks in silence wholly; 
The panting engine leaps into the night. 
85 



TAKING THE NIGHT-TRAIN. 

I seem to see eacli street a mystery growing, 
In mist of dreamland — vague, forgotten air : 

Does no sweet soul, awaking, feel me going? 
Loves no dear heart, in dreams, to keep me there ? 
86 



LEAVES AT MY WINDOW. 

I WATCH the leaves that flutter in the wind, 
Bathing my eyes with coolness and my heart 
Filling with springs of grateful sense anew, 
Before my window — in the sun and rain. 
And now the T\^ind is gone and now the rain, 
And all a motionless moment breathe, and now 
Playful the wind comes back — again the shower. 
Again the sunshine ! Like a golden swarm 
Of butterflies the leaves are fluttering, 
The leaves are dancing, singing — all alive 
(For Fancy gives her breath to every leaf) 
For the blithe moment. Beautiful to me, 
Of all inanimate things most beautiful, 
And dear as flowers their kindred, are the leaves 
In all their summer life ; and, when a child, 
I loved to lie through sunny afternoons 
With half-shut eyes (familiar eyes with things 
Long unfamiliar, knowing Fairyland 
And all the unhidden mysteries of the Earth) 
Using my kinship in those earlier days 
With Nature and the humbler people, dear 
87 



LEAVES AT MY "WINDOW. 

To her green life, in every shade and sun. 

The leaves had myriad voices, and their joy 

One with the birds' that sang among them seem'd ; 

And, oftentimes, I lay in breezy shade 

Till, creeping with the loving stealth he takes 

In healthy temperaments, the blessed Sleep 

(Thrice blessed and thrice-blessing now, because 

Of sleepless things that will not give us rest) 

Came with his weird processions — dreams that 

wore 
All happy masks — ^blithe fairies numberless, 
Forever passing, never more to pass, 
The Spirits of the Leaves. Awaking then, 
Behold the sun was swimming in my face 
Through mists of his creations, swarming gold, 
And all the leaves in sultry languor lay 
Above me, for I waken' d when they dropp'd 
Asleep, unmoving. Now, when Time has ceased 
His holiday, and I am prison'd close 
In his harsh service, master'd by his Hours, 
The leaves have not forgotten me : behold. 
They play with me like children who, awake, 
Find one most dear asleep and waken him 
To their own gladness from his sultry dream ; 
But nothing sweeter do they give to me 
88 



LEAVES AT MY WINDOW. 

Than thoughts of one who, far away, perchance 
Watches like me the leaves and thinks of me 
While o'er her window, sunnily, the shower 
Touches all boughs to music, and the rose 
Beneath swings lovingly toward the pane. 
And She, whom Nature gave the freshest sense 
For all her delicate life, rejoices in 
The joy of birds that use the sun to sing 
With breasts o'er-full of music. *' Little Birds," 
She sings, " Sing to my little Bird below !" 
And with her child-like fancy, half-belief. 
She hears them sing and makes-believe they obey, 
And the child, wakening, listens motionless. 
8 89 



CHARITY AT HOME. 

Two children stand, with dimpled cheek and chin, 
Pressing their loving foreheads to the pane 
To see the forest black in twilight rain. 

But only see their happy walls within. 

Winking in firelight, wavering rosy- warm. 
While rush without, roaring, the wings of storm. 

So, often, we who in charm'd circles stand, 

Where the good Fairy, Fortune, smiling brings 
God's transient gifts with ever-gracious wings, 

Behold the world in her closed Fairyland ; 

For, warm within, from our sweet rooms we gaze 
Into the dark, and see — our Fireside-blaze ! 
90 



MARIAN'S FIRST HALF-YEAR. 

Maiden Marian, born in May, 

When the earth with flowers was gay, 

And the Hours by day and night 

Wore the jewels of delight : 

Half-a-year has vanish' d by 

Like a wondrous pageantry — 

Mother May with fairy flowers, 

June with dancing leaf-crown'd Hours, 

July red with harvest-rust. 

Swarthy August white with dust, 

Mild September clothed in gold, 

Wise October, hermit old — 

And the world, so new and strange, 

Circled you in olden change. 

Since the miracle-morn of birth 

Made your May-day on the earth. 

Half-a-year, sweet child, has brought 

To your eyes the soul of thought ; 

To your lips, with cries so dumb, 

Baby-syllables have come, 
91 



makian's first half-year. 

Dreams of fairy language known 
To your mother's heart alone — 
Ante-Hehrew words complete 
(To old i^oah obsolete) ; 
You have learn' d expressions strange, 
Miracles of facial change, 
Winning gestm-es, supplications, 
Stamp' d entreaties, exhortations — 
Oratory eloquent 

Where no more is said than meant ; 
You have lived philosophies 
Older far than Socrates — 
Holiest life you've understood 
Better than oldest wise and good; 
Such as erst in Eden's light 
Shunn'd not God's nor angels' sight ; 
You have caught with subtler eyes 
Close Pythagorean ties 
In the bird and in the tree, 
And in every thing you see ; 
You have found and practise well 
(Moulding life of principle) 
Epicurean doctrines old 
Of the Hour's fruit of gold ; 
Lifted, Moses-like, you stand. 

Looking, where the Promised Land 

92 



Marian's first half-year. 

Dazzles far away your sight — 
Milk-and-honey's your delight ! 

Maiden Marian, born in May, 
Half-a-year has pass'd away ; 
Half-a-year of cannon-pealing, 
('Twas your era of good feeling,) 
You have scarce heard dreader sound 
Than those privateers around. 
Buzzing flies, a busy brood, 
Lovers of sweet babyhood — 
Than the hum of lullaby 
Rock'd to dreamland tenderly ; 
Half-a-year of dreadest sights 
Through bright days ^nd fairy nights, 
You have seen no dreader thing : 
Than the marvel of a wing. 
Than the leaves whose shadows warm 
Play'd in many a phantom swarm 
On the floor, the table under, 
Lighting your small face with wonder ! 

Maiden Marian, born in May, 

Half-a-year has pass'd away : 

'Tis a dark November day ; 

Lifted by our window, lo ! 

Washington is whirl'd in snow ! 

But, within, the fluttering flame 
93 



makian's first half-year. 

Keeps you summer-warm the same, 

And your mother (while I write), 

Crimson'd by the ember light, 

Murmurs sweeter things to you 

Than I'd write a half-year through : 

Baby-lyrics, lost to art, 

Found within a mother's heart. 

Maiden Marian, born in May, 

m not question Time to-day 

For the mysteries of your morrows. 

Girlhood's joys or woman's sorrows, 

But (while — side by side, alone — 

We recall your summer flown. 

And, with eyes that cannot look. 

Hold his clasped Mystery-Book) 

I will trust when May is here 

He shall measure you a year, 

With another half-year sweet 

Make the ring of light complete : 

We will date our New- Years thence, 

Full of summer songs and sense — 

All the years begun that day 

Shall be born and die in May ! 

November 7, 1862. 

94 



FIRELIGHT ABROAD. 

While the wide twiliglit huslies every thing, 
And the unrisen moon's low mystery 
Reddens the snow with smother'd Eastern fire, 
And, issuing suddenly and bright from heaven. 
Hangs yonder star and flutters, look, as bright, 
Starting from their close heavens, one by one. 
The stars that bless the ended day with peace 
Shine steadfastly — the gentler stars of Home! 

As one who, thoughtful, gazing at a star, 

Marvels what lovelier uplifted lives 

Are bound and dwell within its shining air, 

By my lone casement so I love to watch 

That halo of the fireside shed abroad 

Into the world — Home's holy breath of light — 

Dreaming of spirits in its inner glow. 

There the young bride alights from charmed air 
Into the real air, enchanted still, 
95 



FIRELIGHT ABROAD. 

Breathing a bower of roses evermore 

Over her husband's dusty week-day toil — 

Within the harvest lightening the sheaves, 

The forge's hammer. There the mother smiles 

Her patient days away in daily love, 

With gentle lips and tender-touching hands. 

There her blithe children, asking for her knees, 

(Illumined by the climbing, dancing blaze,) 

Cling warm forever, though the years have swept 

Even the last spark in ashes, long ago, 

From the dear hearthstone, in quick winds of change ; 

There play their dreams and, lisping dream-lik 

prayers, 
Send them to Heaven and sleep at Heaven's door. 
And there the old, remembering (they who seem 
Like helpless trees of some strong forest gone,) 
Watch the white ashes crumble from the flame. 

If angels come from Heaven to our dim earth, 

Thither they come, close visitors unseen. 

To find their mortal kindred — as of old — 

Troubled and sadden'd at their empty air; 

And the three angels born in human hearts — 

One playing hide-and-seek, a fickle child; 

One, the strong blind believer close to Grod, 
96 



FIRELIGHT ABROAD. 

Whispering, througli all darkness, "I tave light;" 
And she, the gentle Warmer of the hearth, 
Kindling a flame where the last ember flies- 
There in the firelight have their dwelling-place. 

The fireside ! 0, a warm breath fills the name ! 
The world's first good, the earth's last happiness, 
Circle that warmth and breathe that sacred air, 
The atmosphere of those soft lights of Home! 
We climb for fame, we walk in mountain paths. 
But there's a cottage down in yonder vale: 
Through the long strife, the storm to take the hour, 
Comes the cool wind from the green pathway thither; 
Through .the white-heated dust a sudden breath 
Of the one rose that guards the happy gate ; 
From the jarr'd street the ever-opening door ! 

Oh, there we warm our hearts when life is cold, 
With memory of days that warm no more! 
Circling the firelight from all exile lands, 
The anchor that no wind can drift away 
Still draws us back. One fireside lights the world! 
9 97 



A LOST GRAVTEYARD 

Near by, a soundless road is seen, o'ergrown with 

grass and brier; 
Far off, the highway's signal flies — a hurrying dust 

of fire. 

But here, among forgotten graves, in June's delicious 

breath, 
I linger where the living loved to dream of lovely 

death. 

Worn letters, lit with heavenward thought, these 

crumbled headstones wear; 
Fresh flowers (old epitaphs of Love) are fragrant here 

and there. 

Years, years ago, these graves were made — no mourn- 
ers come to-day : 

Their footsteps vanish'd, one by one, moving the 
other way. 

98 



A LOST GRAVEYARD. 

Through the loud world they walk, or lie— like those 

here left at rest — 
With two long-folded useless arms on each forgotten 

breast. 

99 



AT EVENINa. 

Hark, out of all the neigliboring forest hum 
The mingled voices of a myriad things, 
(A Sound that half is Silence listening) — 
Birds, insects loud with summer, brooks that creep 
Slow through the dark and flutter in the light 
(As if with prison'd wings) and hurry on, 
And the low, lazy turning evermore 
Of restless leaves unnumber'd, half-asleep 
And yet unsleeping. These, while twilight breathes 
Great stealthy veils of silence over all, 
Feed my old indolence with newer food, 
Till, all forgetful of the hour, I see, 
Winking above a western cloud, the star 
Beloved by lovers and the lover's friend, 
And, underneath the boughs and far and near. 
The fireflies climbing into dusky air. 
Lifting their million stars from grass and weed 
Wet with the dew; meanwhile the stars on high 
Start one by one — from cells invisible — 
100 



AT EVENING. 



Visible in the darkness suddenly, 
Cotemporaries of the dreamy hour. 
Oh, dear to me the coming forth of stars ! 
After the trivial tumults of the day 
They fill the heaven, they hush the earth with awe, 
And, when my life is fretted pettily 
With transient nothings, it is good, I deem. 
From darkling windows to look forth and gaze 
At this new blossoming of Eternity 
'Twixteach To-morrow and each dead To-day, 
Or else with solemn footsteps modulate 
To spheral music wander forth and know 
Their radiant individualities 
And feel their presence newly, hear again 
The silence that is God's voice speaking, slow 
In starry syllables, for evermore. 
101 



THE UNHEARD BELL. 

Somewhere a Bell speaks, deep and slow, 

The ancient monotone of woe : 

A child within a garden bright. 

The Paradise of morning light, 

Hears fountain-laughter, songs of birds. 

And teaches Echo mirthful words. 

Somewhere a Bell speaks, deep and slow. 
The ancient monotone of woe : 
A youth in an enchanted grove 
Hears maidens singing lays of love ; 
Restless he seeks them all the day, 
To crown the loveliest Queen of May. 

Somewhere a Bell speaks, deep and slow. 
The ancient monotone of woe : 
A man, in streets of dust and heat, 
Hears the wide sound of busy feet. 
The. great world's moving, ceaselessly ; 
And dusk sails whiten far at sea. 
102 



THE ITN^HEARD BELL. 

Somewhere a Bell speaks, deep and slow, 
The ancient monotone of woe : 
An old man — deaf to winged song, 
To maiden voice, or moving throng — 
Hears not within his hearse the knell, 
The black procession of the Bell. 
103 



THE DARK STREET. 

WEAET feet that fill the nightly air ! 
No hearts I hear, no faces see above — 

1 feel your single yearning, everywhere, 

Moving the way of Love ! 

Forever crowding weary, one by one 

Ye pass no more through all the shadowy air ; 

The footsteps cease on thresholds dearly lone — 
The hearts, the faces there ! 

There all the voices of the heart arise, 

Unheard along the darkling street before ; 

The faces light their loving lips and eyes — 
The footsteps are no more 1 
104 



QUATRAINS. 

THE MICROSCOPE AND TELESCOPE. 

Look down into the Microscope, and know 
The boundless wonder in the hidden small; 

Look up into the Telescope, and, lo ! 

The hidden greatness in the boundless all ! 

A DIAL AT A GEAYE. 

To number sunny hours by shadows, why 

Is here the dial shown. 
Where from the Sunshine of Eternity 

The Shadow, Time, is llown ': 

THE HIPPOGRLFF. 

Spurn not Life's calls— though seeking higher 

things — 
Earth's loving fires for the celestial levin : 
The hippogriff has feet as well as wmgs. 

For highways of the world and paths of heaven. 
105 



QITATKAINS. 
TO THE SUN. 



Flowee-wakener, that wakest the spheres in light 
I worship thee alike in joy or sorrow: 

Thou leavest behind thee the Eternal Night, 
Thou bear'st before thee the Eternal Morrow. 



EOE , A POET. 



To own a quarry proves no call of Art — 

'T is Nature's store you cannot keep nor give, 

If at your touch the masses will not start, 

Radiant processions, shapes that breathe and live ! 



TORCH-LIGHT IN FALL-TIME. 

I LEFT this sumach-bough with crimson flare 

And, touch'd with subtle pangs of dreamy, pain, 
Through the dark wood a torch I seem to bear 
In Autumn's funeral train. 
106 



THE GOLDEN HAND. 

Lo, from the city's heat and dust 
A Golden Hand forever thrust, 
Uplifting from a spire on high 
A shining finger in the sky ! 

I see it when the morning brings 
Fresh tides of life to living things, 
And the great world awakes : behold. 
That lifted Hand in morning gold ! 

I see it when the noontide beats 
Pulses of fire in busy streets ; 
The dust files in the flaming air : 
Above, that quiet Hand is there. 

I see it when the twilight clings 
To the dark earth with hovering wings 
Flashing with the last fluttering ray, 
That Golden Hand remembers day. 
107 



THE GOLDEN HAND. 

The midnight comes — the holy hour ; 
The city like a giant flower 
Sleeps full of dew : that Hand, in light 
Of moon and stars, how weirdly bright ! 

Below, in many a noisy street 
Are toiling hands and striving feet ; 
The weakest rise, the strongest fall : 
That equal Hand is over all. 

Below, in courts to guard the land, 
Gold buys the tongue and binds the hand ; 
Stealing in God's great scales the gold. 
That awful Hand, above, behold ! 

Below, the Sabbaths walk serene 
With the great dust of Days between ; 
Preachers within their pulpits stand : 
See, over all, that heavenly Hand ! 

But the hot dust, in crowded air 
Below, arises never there ; 

O speech of one who cannot speak ! 

O Sabbath- witness of the Week ! 
108 



THE GRAYE-ANGEL. 

In the moonliglit, on the tombstone, 
Stands the Sculptor's marble dream 

From its face its soul is lifted, 
And its. wings soul-lifted seem. 

On the tombstone stands the Angel, 
And its left hand points below ; 

To its lips is pressed a finger : 
'T is the Angel Death, I know. 
109 



THE BURIED RING. 

Across the door-step, worn and old, 
The new bride, joyous, pass'd to-day; 

The gray rooms show'd an artful gold. 
All words were light, all faces gay. 

Ah, many years have lived and died 
Since she, the other vanish'd one, 

Into that door, a timid bride. 

Bore from the outer world the sun. 

lily, with the rose's glow ! 

rose, the lily's garment clad I — 
The rooms were golden long ago, 

All words were blithe, all faces glad. 



She wore upon her hand the ring. 
Whose frail and human bond is gone- 

A coffin keeps the jealous thing 
Radiant in shut oblivion : 
110 



THE BURIED RING. 

For she, (beloved, who loved so well,) 
In the last tremors of her breath, 

Whisper'd of bands impossible — 
"She would not give her ring to Death." 

But he, who holds a newer face 

Close to his breast with eager glow, 

Has he forgotton her embrace, 
The first shy maiden's, long ago? 

Lo, in a ghostly dream of night, 

A vision, over him she stands. 
Her mortal face in heavenlier light. 

With speechless blame but blessing hands! 

And, smiling mortal sorrow's pain 

Into immortal peace more deep, 
She gives him back her ring again 

The new bride kisses him from sleep I 
111 



AT CHRISTMAS EVE. 

I SAW the tide of Christmas 

Within the darkness rise : 
It flow'd in the hearts of the children, 

And leap'd in their loving eyes. 

The windows breathed the splendor 

Of the joyous day at hand ; 
In the rainy streets of the city 

Shone visions of Fairy-Land. 

There were ships and cars and houses, 

Built marvelously well ; 
Fruits from the Tropics of Fancy, 

And flowers of Miracle ! 

There were picture-books of enchantment 
Gems from the wonder-mines ; 

The ark with the world's old family. 
And myriad new designs. 
112 



AT CHRISTMAS EVE. 

There were birds and beasts unnumber'd, 

Unnamed by me, I am sure ; 
And, wearing many costumes, 

The world in miniature. 

" Many a Tree of Christmas 

Is loaded with joy to-night ; 
Many a bough shall blossom, 

Enchanted, at morning light !" 

I said, and thought of the children, 

In many a dancing home, 
For the Angel of Christmas waiting 

And longing for him to come. 

" They press their joyous faces 

Against the darken'd pane. 
And the lighted world behind them 

They see without in the rain !" 

I said, and thought of the children, 
Abroad in the street at night. 

Who know no Angel of Christmas 
By gifts at morning light : 
10 113 



AT CHRISTMAS EYE. 

" They press their saddened faces 

Against the lighted pane 
And the darken'd world behind them 

They feel, without in the rain !" 

lU 



SUNDOWN. 

While stealthy breezes kiss to frosty gold 
Tlie swells of foliage down the vale serene, 
And all the sunset fills 
The dreamland of the hills, 
Now all the enchantment of October old 
Feels a cold veil fall o'er its passing scene. 

Low sounds of Autumn creep along the plains, 
Through the wide stillness of the woodlands brown, 
Where the still waters glean 
The melancholy scene ; 
The cattle, lingering slow through river lanes. 
Brush yellowing vines that swing through elm- 
trees down. 

The forests, climbing up the northern air. 

Wear far an azure slumber through the light, 
Showing, in pictures strange. 
The stealthy wand of change ; 
The corn shows languid breezes, here and there — 
Faint-heard o'er all the bottoms wide and bright. 
115 



SUNDOWN. 

On many a silent circle slowly blown, 

The hawk, in sun-flush'd calm suspended high, 
With careless trust of might 
Slides wing-wide through the light — 
Now golden through the restless dazzle shown, 
Now drooping down, now swinging up the sky. 

Wind-worn along their sunburnt gables old, 
The barns are full of all the Indian sun. 
In golden quiet wrought 
Like webs of dreamy thought, 
And in their Winter clasp serenely fold 

The green year's earnest promise harvest-won. 

With evening bells that gather, low or loud, 
A village, through the distance, poplar-bound. 
O'er meadows silent grown. 
And lanes with crisp leaves strown, 
Lifts up one spire, aflame, against a cloud 

That slumbers eastward, slow and silver-crowned. 
116 



WHITE FKOST. 

The ghostly Frost is come ■ 

I feel liim in the night; 
The breathless Leaves are numb, 

Motionless with affright : 
The moon, arisen late and still, 
Sees all their faces beaded chill. 

The ghostly Frofci, is here, 

I see him in the nigHt; 
Through all the meadows near 

Waver his garments white : 
Ha ! at our window looking through ? 
Ah, Frost, this Fire would conquer you! 



11 



PASSENGERS. 

Night held aloft tlie gentle star, 
Her earliest watchfire in tlie dark, 

And by the window of the car 

Flutter 'd and flew the hurrying spark. 

Its pathway finding through the snows. 

The train rush'd on with tremulous roar- 
Like one whose purpose burns and glow.*. 
A torch to lead his life, before. 

The darkness grew around the face. 

Of every traveler for the night : 
A sudden vision fiU'd the place 

And touch 'd the gloom with tender light. 

Not from the holy world unknown; 

A gentle mission of the air 
From happy hearth and threshold flown. 

Familiar angels, gather'd there. 
.118 



PASSENGERS. 

prayers tliat breathe from faces briglit, 

tliouglits of love that will not sleep, 
dreams that give the soul by night 

Its wings the body may not keep ! 

Not unattended, far away, 

The wanderer moves with throngs unknown ; 
Ye meet or follow, night or day — 

1 saw your heavenly shapes alone ! 

119 



FORESIGHT OF FATE. 

Mother and Child walk in a patli of flowers, 
Through a bright garden tended by the Hours. 

From gentle blossoms, fragrant-hearted there, 
Birds, singing, lift the child's heart into air. 

Some dreadful House before them grows, unknown : 
A ghost of grated casements stares from stone I 

Whence came the phantom? — what enchantment wild? 
The Mother sees it not nor can the child. 

Lo, some lost face, haunting with dreamy glare 
The darkness, looking through the darkness there 1 

How strange if he, lost to himself within, 
Were that same child pure as a rose from sin; 



And if that face, through those fierce bars aglare, 
g t( 
120 



Saw that same Child cling to that Mother's care 



TO ONE IN A DARKENED HOUSE. 

FRIEND, whose loss is mine in part, 
Your grief is mine in part, althougli 

1 can not measure in my heart 
The immeasurable woe. 

As from a shining window cast 

The fireside's gleam abroad is known, 

I knew the brightness that is pass'd — 
Its inner warmth your own. 

vanish'd firelight! — dark, without, 
The late illumined sphere of space ; 

The warmth within has died about 
Your darken'd heart and face. 

If I could hide your gloom with light. 
Or breathe you back the warmth of old- 

vain! I stand in outer night 
And feel your inner cold ! 
11 121 



THE BIRTHDAYS. 

MORNING, sweet and bright and clear I 
Anew the earth seems blossoming : 

In Summer's swarthy heart I hear 
The fountain-heads of Spring. 

It is your birthday, dearest one — 
Far-off from you this summer day, 

1 think of many another sun 
That August took from May : 

When — ^for your honor — sweet and bright, 
The month of dust and dead perfume 

Remember'd May's delicious light, 
Her gentle breath and bloom. 

I dream of many a birthday blithe, 
Baptizing earth with loving dew, 

Wlien Time the reaper hid his scythe 
And gather'd flowers for you. 
122 



THE BIRTHDAYS. 

Lo, first I see the morning, love, 

That on your mother's tender breast, 

A wingless bird from Heaven above, 
Tou fomid your earthly nest. 

Your childhood's birthdays come and go. 
Stealing from shining day to day 

A lovely child with whom, I know. 
The faii-ies loved to play. 

Your grand old kinsman, Boone, I guess — 

Ulysses of the Indian wild — 
Enjoy'd no dearer loneliness 

Than you a wandering child. 

Shy as the butterfly you went 
On visits to your baby flowers, 

Among the lonely birds content 
To pass unlonely hours. 

Nature, I deem, those birthdays caught 
You to her breast in solitude : 

Her loveliest picture-books she brought 
And read you in the wood. 
123 



THE BIRTHDAYS. 

All lovely things she gave your love : 
The humble flowers, the stars on high, 

The lightning's awful wing above, 
The tremulous butterfly. 

My fancy, love-created, goes 

Lightly from passing year to year : 

My little fairy maiden grows 
To tender girlhood dear. 

A dreaming girl, as shy as dew 

In dells of Fairyland apart. 
Within your soul a lily grew — 

A rose within your heart. 

I follow on your changeful way, 

Lift all the burdens from your hours, 

Make you my constant queen of May 
And wreathe your birthday flowers. 

My fancy follows : ah, perchance, 
I, Fairy Prbice of fable true, 

Found you asleep in fated trance 
And kiss'd you ere you knew ! 
124 



THE BIRTHDAYS. 

They come, they vanish — swift or slow — 
Oh, long unmask'd, those masked years : 

At last the birthdays that I know 
I see, with smiles and tears. 

Your birthdays which are mine draw nigh 
Lo, yours and mine are join'd in one ! — 

Mine with the blue-bird's prophecy, 
Yours with the August sun ! 

And, look, another joins the two : 

The First of March, the August day 
Mingle their tender light and dew 

With Marian's in May ! 

125 



TO GRACE AT CHRISTMAS. 

WITH AN EASTERN FAIRY-BOOK. 

Sweet Fairyland ! at Christmas, lo ! 

Thy sunken splendors shine 
To those Y\rho, Westward, farther go 

Out of the East divine — 
Dear wonder-world by childhood won, 
Lost Miracle of the Morning sun ! 

A blind man prison'd in the light, 

Still, as a blinded man, I look 
At the old shapes of vanish'd sight 

In Memory's Marvel-Book. 
I turn the pages, leaf by leaf. 
And Fancy makes-believe belief! 

But now at charmed words, alas ! 

The treasure-doors have Treasury locks ; 
Aladdin's lamp (or gold or brass ?) 

I rub : the Genius knocks ! — 
This coal- oil lamp was just in place : 
" Come in" — a Genius ? No, a Grace ! 
126 



TO GEACE AT CHRISTMAS. 

Sweet little maiden, to your sight 
Fairies and Fairy-worlds may rise ; 

The East to you shows joyous light 
Where in his cradle lies 

God's Gentle Child — this lovely morn 

I saw him dead and crown'd with thorn ! 

A dreamer's fancy — never mind ; 

You'd have a Fairy-Book, you said : 
A gift of sunshine gives the blind 

When the sweet dreams are dead, 
I pray that from your eyes and heart 
Faith, the True Fairy, '11 ne'er depart! 
December 25, 1862. 

127 



THE LAST FIRE. 

The First Fire, one remember'd night 
Of chilly fall, we kindled : bright 

And beautiful were its gleams 
Warming the new world all our own 
And welcoming radiant futures, shone 

That prophecy of our dreams ! 

Our window burn'd against the cold, 
And faces from the dark, behold ! 

In transient haloes came ; 
The household troubadour of mirth. 
The cricket, took with song our hearth 

And bless'd the blessing flame. 

O flushing firelight, rosy-warm !. 
O walls with many a floating form 

Of dreamy shade a-bloom ! 
Fancy, by Love transfigured, wrought 
AU miracles of tender thought, 

Transfiguring the room ! 
128 



THE LAST FIEE. 

Beloved and bless'd and beautified, 
God-given, Angel by my side ! 

The winter came and went, 
And never, since the world began. 
Grew sweeter happiness to man. 

Or tenderer content. 

At dawn we leave the place, so warm 
And bright with you December's storm 

N'or cold nor shadow brought : 
The Last Fire warms our walls to-night ; 
The window breathes its wonted light. 

But sadness haunts our thought. 

By tenderest tides of feeling stirr'd 
Your heart brings tears for every word : 

I hear you murmur low, 
" Here blossom'd Home for you and me — 
Love walk'd without his glamoiiry 

And stood diviner so. 

"Dear echoes, answering day by day — 

We cannot take the past away ! 

The threshold and the floor. 

Where Love's familiar steps have been 

Repeated evermore within, 

Are dear forever more !" 
129 



THE LAST FIRE. 

Yes, but the place beloved shall be 
Bequeath'd to loving Memory : 

The spirits of the place, 
The Lares of the household air, 
Born of the heart, the heart must bear — 

They know no stranger's face. 

The atmosphere we fill is ours : 

It moves with us its sun and showers ; 

It is our world alone, 
Yivid with all our souls create, 
The plastic dream, the stone of Fate — 

We take and keep our own. 

So let the Last Fire flame and fall, 
The ghostly ember-shadows crawl. 

The ashes fill the hearth : 
The cricket travels where we go. 
And Home is but the Heaven below 

Transfiguring the Earth I 
130 



TO MY BROTHEE GUY, 



AFTER BUTTERFLIES. 

I HAVE watch'd you, little Guy, 
Chasing many a butterfly; 
I have seen you, boy, by stealth 
Strive to pluck the flying wealth 
From the blossoms where it grew, 
Miracle of a moment newj 
I have seen your redden'd face, 
Radiant from the bootless chase, 
Happy-eyed, with gladness sweet 
Laugh away each late defeat; 
I have heard your panting heart, 
Eager for another start, 
Taking newer chances fair 
For the elusive flower of air. 
I'll not check your joyous chase, 
Calling it a useless race; 
I will not discourage you 
With experience seeming-true, 
131 



TO MY BROTHER GUY. 

Showing you with cynic art 
Chrysales within my heart; 
I '11 not whisper, prophesying, 
That the wings are golden, flying — 
Dropping all their pretty dust 
At the touch of the sweet trust: 
Words of warm simplicity, 
Fusing cold philosophy, 
These would light your lips and brow — 
You would chase them anyhow! 
Chase them, fleet-foot champion. 
Lithe knight-errant of the sun! 
Chase the sultry butterflies, 
Tropic summers in disguise! 
Chase them, while your buoyant feet 
Take the heart's ecstatic beat, 
While your playmate is the breeze, 
While the flowers will hide the bees. 
While the birds come singing to you, 
While the sunshine gladdens through you! 
Butterflies, if caught or not. 
Thorough many a gentle spot 
They will lead — though vain the chase 
It must be in the heaven's face : 
132 



TO MY BROTHER GUY. 

For they fly among the flowers, 
In bright air, through sunny hours. 
Chase them — nothing's dead nor dying 
Look, your butterflies are flying 1 
183 



RESURRECTION. 

No season, friend, may seem 
Dearer than that through which I seem'd to go 
When the blind Fever, piloting my dream, 

Drifted me to and fro. 

I thought that you were lost : 
That Light in the dark, or Shadow in the sun, 
Had taken you; and helpless I was toss'd — 

Comfortless and undone 1 

Through all familiar air 
That you had breathed I wander'd, but I found 
Only your absence in my own despair — 

never-healing wound ! 

1 could not find you, and 

I knew I could not ; in a grave you lay 
Which I had seen not — over dust and sand 
Blown in a wind's lost way ! 
134 



RESURRECTION. 

At last you came : behold, 
I saw you — from among the dead, I deem'd : 
Not free from Death, but bearing as of old 

Your living child, you seem'd. 

White with the following light 
Of some new world, whose darkness we but know 
Who blindly look, you claim'd your dearest right, 

The mother's place, below. 

A mother's tender heart, 
That would not rest, had brought you to your own. 
They told me soon again you must depart 

And leave your world alone. 

But still you stay'd and still 
You would not go, and Life again at last 
Renew'd the warm persuasion of its will, 

Breathing, and held you fast. 

And so my dream was gone. 
Lo, I had wander'd almost to that brink 
Where the great Darkness standing in the Dawn 

Makes the night-traveler shrink. 
135 



RESURRECTION. 

'Twas I had pass'd away, 
And my return that brought you back to me; 
I, blind in the mist — you, vanish'd in the day, 

Returu'd when I could see. 

And, still unwearying, lo ! 
Though worn and weary, you had trembled near, 
tender watcher, fearing I should go, 

And hoping out your fear ! 
136 



MOONRISE. 

'Tis midniglit and the city lies . 
With dreaming heart and closed eyes : 
The giant's folded hands at rest, 
Like Prayer asleep, are on his breast. 

From windows hush'd, I see alone 
The tide-worn streets so silent grown : 
The dusty footprints of the day 
Are bless'd with dew and steal away. 

Oh, scarce a pulse of sound ! Afar, 

Flashes upon a spire a star — 

Lo, in the East a dusky light : 

Ghost-like the moon moves through the night. 

Unveiling slow, a face of blood 
She lifts into the solitude ! 
The city sleeps ; above, behold 
The moonrise kiss a cross of gold ! 
12 137 



MOONKISE. 

Golden in air that cross : at rest 
Below the city's sleeping breast ; 
And on the cross, moon-brighten'd, see ! 
Christ, dying, smiles down lovingly ! 
138 



TO A CHILD. 

Oh, while from me, this tender morn, depart 

Dreams vague and vain and wild, 
Sing, tappy child, and dance into my heart, 

Where I was once a child I 

Your eyes they send the hutterflies before. 

Your lips they kiss the rose; 
gentle child, Joy opes your morning door — 

Joy kisses your repose I 

The fairy Echo-children love you, try 

To steal your loving voice; 
Flying you laugh — they, laughing while you fly. 

Gray with your glee rejoice. 

Oh, while from me, this tender morn, depart 

Dreams vague and vain and wild. 
Play, happy child — sing, dance within my heart, 

Where I will be a child! 
• 139 



THE BLUE-BIRD'S BURIAL. 

I. 

A.FTER long rains November, in a brief dream of 

Spring, 
Had the tearful eyes of April ; some trees were 

blossoming. 

But, long before, October dear April's bloom bad 

bless'd — 
Her goldenest hope lay ripen'd upon his swarthy 

breast. 

Hush'd were the noons and leafless the boughs of 

the cherry tree, 
Where the blue-bird sang as prophet, and as preacher 

humm'd the bee. 

Deep in her palace of honey the queen-bee dream'd 

of Spring, 
And moved in winter slumber while the trees were 



blossoming. 



140 



THE BLUE-BIRD S BURIAL. 

And the blue-bird dropp'd — remember, we buried 
bim, darling, found 

With the dead leaves, nameless, homeless, and coffin- 
less, on the ground. 

We found him and bless'd and buried the prophet 

of blossom and bee, 
With painted leaves for his cover, under his laurel 

tree : 

Saying, " Dear poet and prophet, you bless'd the 

world, we know; 
We give you the poet's guerdon — a grave in Winter 



*' But blessed and blessing forever shall be the life 

you led; 
Your breath was a breath of heaven — sleep warm in 

the Earth's cold bed. 

" Forgotten and unremember'd ? — remember'd and 

unforgot ! 
Your soul shall rise and flutter from many a poet's 

thought ; 

141 



THE BLUE-BIRD S BURIAL. 

"And all the haunted silence deep in the poet's 

breast, 
Of Spring and Love and Longing, shall rise with 

wings, express'd. 

"Sleep, therefore, April's darling, twin of the violet 
dead. 

With the ghost of song in your bosom, the star- 
flower at your head." 

II. 

You found the star-flower, dearest. never — though 

all the years 
Go out with dirges and darkness and comfortless 

Kachel's tears — 

Shall flush the world with fragrance a Spring so lovely 

here 
As the dream of Spring, in Autumn, to me you made 

so dear; 

When, wandering in the woodland, that gentle day, 

we found 
The blue-bird, nameless, homeless, and coffinless, on 

the ground ; 

142 



THE BLUE-BIRD S BURIAL. 

When, child at heart forever, but woman sweet and 
brave, 

With world-old, tender fancies, you kiss'd the blue- 
bird's grave. 

That night the late, hush'd moonrise came, dusky, 

large and red : 
Jewel'd with frosty jewels it saw November dead. 

Within, our fire kept dancing to all sweet dreams and 

bright : 
You said, "I hear the blue- bird sing in my heart 

to-night." 



SLEEP. 

The Mist crawls over the Kiver, 
Hiding the shore on either side, 

And, under the veiling Mist forever. 
Neither hear we nor feel we the tide. 

But our skiff has the will of the River, 
Though nothing is seen to be pass'd ; 

Though the Mist may hide it forever, forever 
The current is drawing as fast. 

The matins sweet from the far-off town 
Fill the air with their beautiful dream; 

The vespers were hushing the twilight down 
When we lost our oars on the stream. 
144 



FROST Olsr THE PAKES. 

Before my window standing 
I see the dream-like glow 

Of Frost against the dawning : 
Old fancies come and go. 

A little child is gazing, 
With wonder-lighted eyes, 

Before the white enchantment 
That veils the morning skies. 

His mother steals beside him : 
The marvellous picture gleams— 

The Fairy, Frost, has painted 
His Fairy world of dreams ! 

Weird woodlands shine enchanted 
With crystal boughs so bright. 

Where ghouls alone have wander'd ; 
Strange castles haunt the hight. 
13 145 



FKOST ON THE PANES. 

Lo, while the child is gazing, 
The white enchantment 's fled, 

And I, alone, awaken, 
And Fairyland is dead ' 

I look out through the window : 
The market roars and beats, 

"With myriad wheels and footsteps 
The crowded morning streets. 

Tears stand upon the window, 
For the frost-work's fragile gleam, 

And on my cheek are tear-drops, 
Old relics of my dream. 

Tears shine upon the window. 

Where the frost-work flash'd before 

Ah, in Time's Eastern windows 

Are frosted panes no more ! 
146 



TO THE LARES. 

Dear Houseliold Deities, worsliipp'd best, we deem, 

With gentle sacrifice of Love alone ! 
Guardians of Home, wlio make the hearthstone seem 

Altar and shrine, make our hearth your own : 
Whether the North-wind walls the world away 

With snowy bastions from his frozen lands, 
Or Zephyr through our window, day by day, 

Climbs like a child with roses in his hands. 
147 



Benjames^ M. Piatt. 

Ob. April 20, 1863— ^t. 84. 

Neae his loved home, among familiar flowers, 
(Whose memories mingle fragrant breath with ours,) 
Sleeps a gray father of the mighty West. 
His hands had Nature's plea for folded rest : 
For, through long years and manhood's noble strife, 
Whiten'd his head above his golden life. 
He pass'd as one who from his harvest goes. 
Attended by the sun, to his repose — 
Gracious and good. Behold his simple fame : 
He lies asleep beneath his honor'd name. 
148 



FOR A GRAVESTONE. 

The marble has no speech but that we give, 
And we are dumb, and, speechless, pass awa^ 

The silence in which our affections live 

Holds all we need to speak and can not say. 
149 



THE SIGHT OF ANGELS. 

The angels come, the angels go, 

Through open doors of purer air ; 
Their moving presence oftentimes we know. 

It thrills us every-where. 

Sometimes we see them : lo, at night, 
Our eyes were shut but open'd seem : 

The darkness breathes a breath of wondrous light, 
And then it was a dream ! 
150 



SONNETS. 



MY SHADOW'S STATURE. 

Whene'er, in morning airs, I walk abroad. 
Breasting upon the hills the buoyant wind, 
Up from the vale my shadow climbs behind, 
An earth-born giant climbing toward his god; 
Against the sun, on heights before untrod, 
I stand: faint glorified, but undefined, 
Far down the slope in misty meadows blind, 
I see my ghostly follower slowly plod. 
"0 stature of my shade," I muse and sigh, 
"How great art thou, how small am I the while!" 
Then the vague giant blandly answers, " True, 
But though thou art small thy head is in the sky,. 
Crown'd with the sun and all the Heaven's smile — 
My head is in the shade and valley too." 
153 



MY NIGHTMARE. 

All day my nightmare in my thought I keep : 
Spell-bound, it seem'd, by some magician's 

charm, 
A giant slumber'd on my slothful arm — 
His great, slow breathings jarr'd the land of sleep, 
(Like far-off thunder, rumbling low and deep,) 
Lifting his brawny bosom bronzed and warm — 
When lo ! a voice shook me with stern alarm : 
" "Who art thou here that dost not sow nor reap ? 

Behold the Sleeping Servant of thy Day — 
Arouse him to thy deed : if thou but break 

His slumberous spell, awake he will obey." 
I lifted up my voice and cried " Awake !" 
And I awoke ! — my arm, unnerved, lay dead, 
A useless thing beneath my sleeping head 1 

My Birthday, 1863. 

164 



TO A POET: ON HIS MARRIAGE. 

"The Artist with his Art alone should wed," 
They say, the worldly wise, "who runs may 

read ;" 
And I would grant it holy truth indeed, 
Did Art want men in whom the man was dead- 
Pale priesthood. But with fullest life, instead, 
She ordains her truer worshippers : her need 
Is men who live as well as dream their deed ; 
She loves to see her lovers sweat for bread. 
My friend, I know you not as one who bear, 

Dream-like, upon your soul the ideal sphere 
And kick the real world beneath your feet : 
I see you, brave young Atlas, lift in air 

The loving load of manhood, without fear. 
Both worlds be one to you, a world complete ! 

II. 
If you should ask me what your life should seem, 
Built by the great, slow mason. Time, for you, 
(My wishes being master-builders, too,) 
rd say a grand cathedral, with the stream 
155 



TO A poet: on his marriage. 

Of wondrous light through windows all a-gleam 

With heavenliest shapes and sacred historie? 
true 

Of truest lives that e'er immortal grew 
From low mortality's divinest dream. 
Above, uplifted on some chaunt divine, 

An angel choir should cluster, dumb in stone ; 
Below, and rapt in the religious air. 
Most saintly brows should with a halo shine : 

And, amid marble multitudes alone, 
Lo ! one sweet woman's face the holiest there ! 
156 



THE BOOK OF GOLD. 



If I could write a Book made sweet with thee, 
And therefore sweet with all that may be sweet, 
With lingering music never more complete 
Should turn its golden pages : each should be 
Like whispering voices, beckoning hands, and he 
"Who read should follow, while his heart would 

beat 
For some new miracle, with most eager feet 
Through loving labyrinths of mystery. 
Temple and lighted home of Love should seem 
The Book wherein my love remember'd thine : 
There holiest visions evermore should gleam, 
Vanishing wings, with wandering souls of sound 
And breaths of incense from an inmost shrine 
Sought nearer evermore and never found. 

II. 
Yague wishes, in my bosom, never cold 
Brought these vague words to me one Summer 

night, 
Longing to prison in crystal the sweet light 
157 



THE BOOK OF GOLD. 

My soul had breathed and write a Book of Gold 

To keep my love within the radiant fold 

Of Love's true heraldry in histories bright ; 

And Love, the only poet, whisper'd " Write," 

When I began with impulse overbold 

Which had dumb lips — then, turning, spake to 

Love: 
" Sweet Master, how shall I, unskilful, know 
To speak of thee and thine, all things above ?" 
" I still shall hold thy hand and guide thy heart ; 
Let what is mine be thine," he answer'd low, 
" And what is artful Love's thy loving Art." 
168 



TEAVELERS. 

We may not stand content: it is our part 
To drag slow footsteps after the far sight, 
The long endeavor following up the bright 
Quick aspiration ; there is ceaseless smart 
Feeling but cold-hand surety for warm heart 
Of all desire; no man may say at night 
His goal is reach'd; the hunger for the light 
Moves with the star; our thirst will not depart, 
Howe'er we drink. 'Tis what before us goes 
Keeps us aweary, will not let us lay 
Our heads in dreamland, though the enchanted palm 
Rise from our desert, though the fountain grows 
Up in our path, with slumber's flowering balm : 
The soul is o'er the horizon far away. 
159 



ANNIVERSARY. 

A Mother and a Child, most blessed sigtt. 
My spirit saw — a pure and holy pair: 
The infant open-eyed to morning air 
Of its new world, baptized in earthly light ; 
The Mother with the ecstatic knowledge bright 
Of her first motherhood, how gently fair ! 
Breathing her blissful breath to heaven in prayer, 
Keeping her heart so near her new delight ! 
"Who are you, gentle visions?" then I said — 
But these were gone. An Angel came and spoke : 
"I am that mother; see my darling's head 
I lay upon your bosom." I awoke. 
Warm with great tender gratitude, and wept ; 
Your head was on my bosom while I slept. 
160 



TWOFOLD. 

If you should vanish, in some lonely place, 
And never, never more appear again, 
(Though your lost face should float about my brain, 
The elusive phantom of a lost embrace, 
Out of the mystery of a starless space,) 
And I should strive, with long conceptive pain, 
"Sour form so dear from marble to regain, 
Or paint the flying memory of your face : 
I have not seen you, love, as others deem — 
Though stone or color might their semblance give, 
I 'd watch a child steal shyly from your heart, 
To comfort little birds that orphans seem. 
Or flowers that need a drop of dew to live, 
And this, I think, would baffle subtle art. 
14 161 



A BUST IN CLAY * 

s. p. c. 

A KOBLE soul is breathing from the clay, 
Created, Sculptor, with a soul by thee ; 
A noble soul a noble man's must be : 
One of a few, he knelt not to the Day 
IsTor petty stampings of the applausive Hour, 
But, in the dark of her uprising light, 
Upheld in word and served in deed the Right, 
]N"or sued the million-headed mob for j)ower. 
O beautiful ! on the calm lips, content. 
Breathes the high presence of a life weU spent ; 
Such brows the centuries love ! No marble needs 
His soul that carves itself in marble deeds : 
Oh, be it long — Ohio's prayer my own — 
Ere clay or marble keeps that soul, alone ! 

January, 1859. 

* By T. D. Jones, Sculptor, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
162 



MIRAGE. 

I KNOW the Mirage — the vague, wandering ghost 
That haunts the desert's still and barren sand 
With the close vision of a lovelier land, 
Once blossoming but now forever lost: 
It rises to the eyes of men who bear 
Hunger of heart and thirst of lip in vain — 
Mocking their souls with rest. Behold, how plain! 
Taking the breathless sand and boundless air, 
It comes up from the horizon, far away: 
Lost fountains flutter under beckoning palm, 
(Singing, all birds of longing thither start,) 
Dear voices rise from homes where children play, 
The footsteps lighten, the blest air blows balm. 
Then all is sand — within a dreamer's heart! 
163 



SEPTEMBEK. 

All things are full of life tliis autumn morn ; 
The hills seem growing under silver cloud; 
A fresher spirit in Nature's breast is born; 
The woodlands are blowing lustily and loud ; 
The crows fly, cawing, among the flying leaves; 
On sunward-lifted branches struts the jay; 
The fluttering brooklet, quick and bright, receives 
Bright frosty silverings slow from ledges gray 
Of rock in buoyant sunshine glittering out; 
Cold apples drop through orchards mellowing; 
'Neath forest-eaves quick squirrels laugh and shout; 
Farms answer farms as through bright morns of 

Spring, 
And joy, with dancing pulses full and strong, 
Joy, every -where, goes Maying with a song ! 
164 



THE WEEK. 

Sweet Days, God's daughters, shining o'er tne world! 
Bright are your feet on the far morning shore, 
And, going back to heaven for evermore 
Through twilight's dreamy golden gates unfurl'd, 
Your footsteps in the dews of evening shine. 
A radiant garland round the burning throne, 
Guarded with angel wings — a heavenly zone — 
Fair are ye all, dear Rays of Light Divine! 
Yet fairest is she, the youngest of your name, 
In her pure garment of translucent white. 
And wearing on her head the halo-light 
Brightening till all things near her wear the same: 
For — though God loves ye all — when ye are bless'd 
His Hand lies on her brow, dear Day of Best! 
165 



THE WHITE LILY. 

I dream'd and saw a lily in my dream 
Of fever'd wakefulness at twilight liour : 
Issuing from moonliglit grew that blessed flower 
Over my pillow, and the tender gleam 
Of its white gentleness, like a soothing stream, 
Alighted on me, and I ask'd: "What dower 
Of purity is thine, that 'gainst the power 
Of all impurity a charm doth seem?" 
Transfigured dreadlessly the lily grew 
An angel's stature, passing so away. 
Then I awoke from fever which had been. 
But in that dewy presence could not stay, 
And over me you lean'd witb holier dew. 
Out of your heart had. grown the flower within. 
166 



AWAKE IN DARKNESS. 

Mother, if I could cry from out the nignt 

And you could come (Oh, tearful memory !) 

How softly close ! to soothe and comfort me, 

As when a child awaken 'd with affright, 

My lips again, as weak and helpless quite, 

Would call you, call you, sharp and plaintively — 

vain, vain, vain ! Your face I could not see ; 

Your voice no more would bring my darkness light. 

To this shut room, though I should wail and weep, 

You would not come to speak one brooding word 

And let its comfort warm me into sleep 

And leave me dreaming of its comfort heard : 

Though all the night to morn at last should creep. 

My cry would fail, your answer be deferr'd. 

November, 1865. 

167 



TPIE CHILD IN THE STREET. • 

FOR A BOOK OF TWO, 

Even as tender parents lovingly 

Send a dear child in some true servant's care 
Forth on the street, for larger light and air, 

Feeling the sun her guardian will be, 

And dreaming with a blushful pride that she 
Will earn sweet smiles and glances every-where, 
From loving faces, and that passers fair 

Will bend, and bless, and kiss her, when they see, 

And ask her name, and if her home is near. 
And think, " gentle child, how bless'd are they 
Whose twofold love bears up a single flower!" 

And so with softer musing move away : 

We send thee forth, Book, thy little hour — 

The world may pardon us to hold thee dear. 
168 



FIVE YEAEH 



15 



THE BRONZE STATUE— APRIL, 1861. 

Uplifted when the April sun was down, 

Gold-lighted by the tremulous, fluttering beam, 

Touching his glimmering steed with spurs in gleam. 

The Great Virginia Colonel into town 

Rode, with the scabbard, emptied, on his thigh. 

The Leader's hat upon his head, and lo ! 

The old still manhood in his face aglow, 

And the old generalship up in his eye ! 

" O father !" said I, speaking in my heart, 

" Though but thy bronzed form is ours alone. 

And marble lips here in thy chosen place. 

Rides not thy spirit in to keep thine own. 

Or weeps thy Land, an orphan in the mart ?" 

The twilight dying lit the deathless face. 

Washington, D. 0. 

171 



HONORS OF WAR. 

Wails of slow music move along the street, 
Before the slow march of a myriad feet 

Whose mournful echoes come; 
Banners are muffled, hiding all their sight 
Of sacred stars — the century's dearest light — 

And, muffled, throbs the drum. 

Proud is the hearse our Mother gives her son, 
On the red altar laid her earliest one! 

Wrapp'd in her holiest pall 
He goes: her household guardians follow him, 
Eyes with their new heroic tears are dim; 

The stern to-morrows call ! 

Well might the youth who saw his coffin'd face, 
Lying in state within the proudest place, 

Long for a lot so high: 
He was the first to leap the treacherous wall; 
First in the arms of Death and Fame to fall — 

To live because to die! 
172 



HONORS OF WAR 

Pass on, witli wails of music, moving slow, 
Thy dark dead-march, Mother dress'd in woe! 

Lo, many another way 
Shall blacken after, many a sacred head 
Brightly thy stars shall fold, alive though dead, 

From many a funeral day! 

Weep, but grow stronger in thy suffering: 

From their dead brothers' graves thy sons shall bring 

New life of love for thee: 
The long death-marches herald, slow or fast, 
The resurrection-hour of men at last 

New-born in Liberty! 
Washinqton, May, 1861. 

173 



A SABBATH IN JULY. 

A YEAR ago to-day, the Sabbath hours 

Were sweet to us, wanderiug together, here 
In these green woods. The skies were soft and 
clear. 
And the sun wrought his miracles in flowers. 
Sweet was the Sabbath stillness of these bowers ; 
The birds sang in the tender atmosphere, 
And God's own voice seem'd whispering low and 
near 
To His hush'd children in those hearts of ours. 
Lo ! scarcely mingling with the real day, 

Far thunders beat in the heart of solitude. 
Echoes of Hell to Heaven's divine repose : 

For, while we breathed the breathless Sabbath 
wood. 
The cannon's awful monotone arose 

Where the dread Sabbath-breaking Preacher 
stood ! 



July 21, 1862. 



174 



THE KESTS AT WASHINGTON. 

Before me White House porxais, 
The careless eyes behold 

Three iron bombs uplifted, 
Adusk in summer gold. 

In dreamy mood I wander' d 
At Sabbath sunset there, • 

While the wide city's murmur 
Hummed vaguely everywhere : 

" Black seeds of desolation," 
I said, " by W ar's red hand 

Sown in the fierce sirocco 
Over the wasted Land! 

" Unholy with the holy, 
What do ye here to-day, 

Symbols of awful battle. 
In Sabbath's peaceful ray?" 
175 



THE NESTS AT WASHINGTON. 

Angel of Dust and Darkness ! 

I heard thy woeful breath, 
With noise of all earth's battles, 

Answer : " Let there be Death!" 

I thought of many a midnight. 
Where sprang terrific light 

Over wide woods and marshes ; 
Fierce fire-flies lit the night. 

I saw beleaguer'd bastions 

Leap up in red dismay, 
Wide rivers all transfigured 

Awake in dreadful day. 

Asleep in peaceful sunshine 
Glimmer'd the warlike things : 

Into their hollow horror 

Flew tenderest summer wings ! 

Deep in the awful chambers 

Of the gigantic Death, 
The wrens their nests had builded 

And dwelt with loving breath. 
176 



THE NESTS AT WASHINGTON^. 

Angel of Resurrection ! 

Over all buried strife 
I heard thy bird-song whisper, 

Sweetly, " Let there be Life !" 

Washington, D. C, June, 1862. 
177 



SONNET— IK 1862. 

Steen be the Pilot in the dreadful hour 
When a great nation, like a ship at sea 
With the wroth breakers whitening at her lee, 

Feels her last shudder if her Hehnsman cower ; 

A godlike manhood be his mighty dower ! 
Such and so gifted, Lincoln, may'st thou be 
With thy high wisdom's low simplicity 

And awful tenderness of voted power : 

From our hot records then thy name shall stand 
On Time's calm ledger out of passionate days — 

With the pure debt of gratitude begim 
And only paid in never-ending praise — 

One of the many of a mighty Land 

Made by God's providence the Anointed One. 
178 



THE BALLAD OF A ROSE. 

My folded flower last Summer grew 
Sweetly in a glad Southern place; 

Its heart was filled with peaceful dew, 
The peaceful sunshine kiss'd its face. 

Beside the threshold of a cot 
It knew familiar household ties, 

The May's beloved forget-me-not 

To maiden's lips and children's eyes. 

Bees climb'd about it; birds above 
Sang in the flush'd year of the rose: 

"Our new millennium of Love 
Begins with every May it blows." 

Warm cottage-windows muimur'd near 
All music making home so sweet— 

The mother's voice divinely dear, 

The lisping tongues, the pattering feet. 
179 



THE BALLAD OF A ROSE. 

Ah, little rose, another tale 

On your dumb lips has waited long 

(Since then your tender lips grew pale) — 
Speak, darling; make your speech my song! 

Another tale than cottage peace, 
Than balmy quiet, hovering wings 

Of humming-birds and honey-bees. 

And Summer's breath of shining things. 

Ah, little rose, your lips are mute: 
Could Fancy give them words to-day. 

Such histories would but sadly suit 

Those lips that knew but Love and May ! 

You woke, one Sabbath, warm and sweet: , 
The fields were bright with dewy glow; 

The sun smiled o'er the springing wheat, 
And spake, "Let all things lovelier grow!" 

What answer rock'd the awaken'd earth, 
Strange echo to that voice divine! 

Before the battle's awful birth 

The earth and heaven gave no sign. 
180 



THE BALLAD OF A ROSE. 

The cannon thunder'd every -where ; 

The bomb sprang howling from afar, 
A coming earthquake born in air, 

A winged hell, a bursting star! 

And lo! about the sacred spot 

Where late the doves of home would 'light. 
Men red with battle falter' d not 

Though others lay with faces white. 

The lowly roof of Love, behold ! 

Is rent by shell and cannon-ball; 
The rifles flame from casements old; 

By bullets torn the roses fall! 

Under the rose-tree where you grew, 
A soldier, dying, look'd and saw 

Your face, that only Sabbath knew. 
With Nature's love and Heaven's law. 

He heard with ebbing blood and breath, 
At your sweet charm, the thunder cease. 

And in that earthquake-hour of Death 
The cannon jarr'd the bells of Peace. 
181 



THE BALLAD OF A ROSE. 

For while lie saw you, tender flower! 

So peaceful in that troubled place, 
A tenderer vision toucli'd the hour 

And left its halo on his face. 

A captain pluck'd you, in the roar 
Of battle, o'er his comrade slain. 

And through the fight your beauty bore 
Bloodless upon the bloody plain. 

Dear rose, within your folded leaves 
I know what other memory liesj 

I hear (or else my ear deceives) 
Your wail of homesick longing rise 

" happy Summer, lost to me ! 

threshold, mine to guard no more ! " 
You yearn for visits of the bee 

To rose's heart and cottage-door. 

Rest in my book, precious flower ! 

And seem — a whitening face above — 
The witness in the battle hour 

Of Peace and Home, of God and Love ! 
1862. 182 



THE OPEN SLAVE-PEN. 

We start from sleep in morning's buoyant dawn, 
And find the horror which our sleep oppress'd 

A vanish'd darkness, in the daylight gone — 

The nightmare's burthen leaves the stifled breast. 

Yet still a presence moves about the brain. 
Some frightful shadow lost in hazy light, 

And in the noonday highway comes again. 

The loathsome phantom of the breathless night. 

So, while before these hateful doors I stand, 
I feel the burdening darkness which is pass'd, 

Or passing surely from the awaken'd land : 

The nightmare clutches me and holds me fast. 

Back from the years that seem so long ago 
Return the dark processions which have been ; 

Lifting again lost manacles of woe 

They enter here — they vanish, going in. 
183 



THE OPEN SLAVE-PEN. 

Hark to the smother'd murmur of a race 

Within these walls — its helpless wail and moan — 

Which, for the ancient shadow on its face, 

Call'd not the morning's new-born light its own I 

Imprison'd here, what unforgotten cries 
Of hopeless torture and what sights of woe, 

From cotton-field and rice-plantation rise ! — 

These walls have heard, and seen, and witness show. 

The human drove, the human driver, see ! 

Hark, the dread bloodhound in the swamp at bay ! 
The whipping-post reechoes agony; 

The slave-mart blackens all the shameful day. 

The wife and husband, see, asunder thrust ; 

The mother dragg'd from her far children's wail ; 
The maiden torn from love and given to lust — 

The Human Family in a bill of sale ! 

All sounds reecho, all sights reappear : 

(0 blindness, deafness ! that ye can not be I) 

All sounds of woe, that have been heard, I hear ; 
All sights of shame, that have been seen, I see I 
184 



THE OPEN SLAYE-PEN. 

sounds, be still ! visions, leave the day ! — 
What thunder trembled on the sultry air ? 

What lightnings went upon their breathless way ? 
Behold the stricken gates of old despair ! 

The writing on these barbarous walls was plain ; 

The curse has fallen none would understand : 
Grod's deluge ere another happier rain ; 

His plow of fire before the reaper's land ! 

The awful nightmare slips into its night, 

With cannon-flash and noise of hurrying shell : 

prisons, open for returning light, 
The sun is in the world, and all is well ! 

16 185 



THE DEAR PRESIDENT. 

Abraham Lincoln, the Dear President, 

Lay in tlie Round Hall at the Capitol, 

And there the people came to look their last. 

There came the widow, weeded for her mate; 
There came the mother, sorrowing for her son ; 
There came the orphan moaning for its sire. 

There came the soldier, bearing home his wound ; 
There came the slave, who felt his broken chain ; 
There came the mourners of a blacken'd Land. 

Through the dark April day, a ceaseless throng, 
They pass'd the coffin, saw the sleeping face, 
And, blessing it, in silence moved away. 

And one, a poet, spake within his heart: 

"It harm'd him not to praise him when alive. 

And me it can not harm to praise him dead. 
186 



THE DEAR PRESIDENT 

'' Too oft the muse has blush'd to speak of men- 
No muse shall blush to speak her best of him. 
And still to speak her best of him is dumb. 

"0 lofty wisdom's low simplicity! 

awful tenderness of voted power! — 

No man e'er held so much of power so meeK. 



"He was the husband of the husbandless, 

He was the father of the fatherless : 

Within his heart he wei";h'd the common woe. 



"His call was like a father's to his sons: 
As to a father's voice, they, hearing, came — 
Eager to offer, strive, and bear, and die. 

" The mild bond-breaker, servant of his Lord, 
He took the sword, but in the name of Peace, 
And touched the fetter, and the bound was free. 

"Oh, place him not among the historic kings. 
Strong, barbarous chiefs and bloody conquerors, 
But with the great and pure Republicans : 
187 



THE DEAR PRESIDENT. 

'' Those who have been unselfish, wise, and good, 
Bringers of Light and Pilots in the dark, 
Bearers of Crosses, Servants of the World. 

"And always, in his Land of birth and death, 
Be his fond name — warm'd in the people's hearts — 
Abraham Lincoln, the Dear President." 
188 



TO R. C. S. 

Dear General, in the Age of Chivalry— 

That Golden Age of Manhood, whose lost seed 
Blossom'd in you— true men of loyal breed 
Bow'd under kingly swords, on bended knee, 
And rose with Knighthood holy, sworn to be 
Champions of Right and guardians at her need, 
Their life the errand of some noble deed 
Halo'd by History, crown'd by Poesy. 
But Nature, first Knight-maker then as now, 

(For Kings were but her servants and are still,) 
Put her great seal of Knighthood on your brow. 

And we behold you sacred to her will. 
Knowing why on your thigh the sword is seen 
And on your hair the civic wreath is green. 
189 



THE UNBENDED BOW. 

In some old realm, we read, wlien war had come, 
Tlie bended bow, a warlike sign, was sent 

Across the land — a summoner fierce but dumb ; 
When peace return'd the bow was pass'd unbent. 

Oh, sacred Land ! not many years ago 

(The symbol breathes its meaning evermore). 

Thy holy summons, came the bended bow — 
Thy fiery bearers moved from door to door. 

Then sprang thy brave from threshold and from hearth ; 

Their angry footsteps sounded, moving far, 
As when an earthquake moves across the earth ; 

Shone on thy hills the flame-lit tents of war. 

tender wife, in all thy weakness stern 

With the great purpose which thy husband drew ; 
mother dreaming of thy son's return, 

Strong with the arm whose strength thy country 
knew ] 

190 



THE UNBENDED BOW. 

maiden, proud to hold a hero's name 

Close in thy prayerful silence, blameless : lo, 

Transfigured in the light of love and fame, 
They come, the bearers of the unbended bow ! 

"The strife is hush'd, Land ! " — this voice is plain- 

" The bow of Peace is borne from door to door : 
May thy dread power be never tried again ; 
But let thine arrows shine for evermore.'* 
1865. 

191 



FOOTSTEPS RETURIS'ING. 



17 



RIDING THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

Old miracles happen every day: 
That nothing 's new in earth or air 
It needs no Solomon to say. 

Wonderful to the foaling mare, 
Was dropp'd a colt of marvelous mettle. 
'Twas common stock, both dam and sire. 
His mane was like a flying fire 
When in the unbridled fields he flew, 
And some believed him winged, too. 
The use of such a skittish creature 
The village folk could hardly settle; 
No rider dared his dangerous back 
Save one, a youth, whose mate he seem'd, 
Who shunn'd like him the dusty track 
With something of a kindred nature — 
A boy who did not well but dream'd, 
A vagabond with half-shut eyes 
Who would not sow in Paradise : 
195 



RIDING THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

To this one as his rider how'd 
The flying-footed — humble, proud. 

'Twas plain he was not fit to plow; 

For lead or wheel horse on the road 

In vain were all attempts to break him — 

(To lead right willing he, in truth, 

Where none could follow him !) Forsooth, 

He balk'd and scorn'd the curse or goad \ 

" He 's good to look at, that is clear, 

But little profit anyhow" — 

A wrinkle cross' d the farmer's brow — 

"And so we'll find him rather dear. 

He eats enough — Lord knows — we knowl 

Here! mount your run-away and go — 

To-morrow to the market take him!" 

The saying, then the doing : rare 
The splendors of the morning show'd, 
When ready for the journey there 
Stood horse and rider on the road. 
"For how much shall I sell him?" said 
The youth with pangs of dumb regret : 
"As much," the old man hot and red, 
"As he will bring and you will get!" 
196 



RIDING THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

With many a shying make-pretense, 
As half in earnest, half in play. 
At sliding nothings on the way. 
With dainty prance and flame-like bound, 
Aerial miles of flying fence. 
The dust behind, the wind before, 
Townward the horse his rider bore — 
Within the air, upon the ground. 
At length at day's most noisy heat 
They enter'd in the market street; 
Among the buyers soon they come, 
When — strange that it should happen bo, 
But so it often happens — lo, 
The crowd for praise or blame are dumb : 
The merits of the matchless steed, 
Unrecognized, have little heed. 
At last one cried — " What have we here ? 
A beggar come to market, clear ! " 
"What sorry jade is that?" another. 
And, strange ! — how strange it seem'd, indeed !- 
Behold, the wondrous-mettled steed 
Has lost the spirit late so plain 
In forehead, foot, and mien and mane ; 
His eyes are dull, his flank no more 
Shines with the sunshine, as before ; 
197 



RIDING THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

Their breath his nostrils lose or smother; 

His ribs look out, his head is dropp'd, 

And, standing lost in public gaze. 

His heavenly pulses flutter, stopp'd. 

"You want to sell?" a jockey says — 

" I think, whatever be your price, 

Your buyer makes the sacrifice." 

" What are his good points? — let us know them." 

"As for his oats — why, let him show them!" 

"How many minutes make his mile?" 

"I have a dray-horse just his mate!" 

" Here, smith, is something for your doing : 

What hoofs ! — he needs a deal of shoeing ! " 

And one, a punner, passing late, 

"This was the winged horse, I vow: 

That he 's gone up — you see it now ! " 

Spoke with a self-perceiving smile. 

" Speaking of wings," another cries, 

" His can't be seen, you see : perhaps 

His ears, which can be seen, he flaps 

And thinks him flying — from the flies ! " 

The jockey's scorn, the jeerer's aim. 
Meanwhile, the horse and rider both, 
In mutual weakness, mutual shame, 
198 



RIDING THE HORSE TO MARKET. 

Hear — for they must, however loth. 
Till — at the last, when, weary grown. 
The crowd disperse and leave them there 
Unbought within the mart alone — 
Awaken'd into buoyant air 
From something like a dream of fame, 
A poet sees the sultry gleam 
Of morning on the city flame, 
Far-off, and that deliverance came 
Thanks Grod : the Pegasus he strode 
And to the dusty market rode 
"Was the va^^nie Nothing of his dream f 

199 



THE FIRST TRYST. 

She pulls a rose from her rose-tree, 
Kissing its soul to him — 

Far over years, far over dreams 
And tides of chances dim. 

He plucks from his heart a poem ; 

A flower-sweet messenger, 
Far over years, far over dreams. 

Flutters its soul to her. 

These are the world-old lovers, 
Clasped in one twilight's gleam : 

Yet he is but a dream to her. 
And she a poet's dream. 
200 



THE BURIED ORGAN. 



Far in a valley green and lone, 

Lying within some legend old, 
Sometimes is heard an Organ's tone, 

Trembling, into the silence roll'd : 
In vanish' d years (the legend stands) 

To save it from the unhallowing prey 
Of foeman's sacrilegious hands. 

The monks their Organ bore away. 



None knows the spot wherein they laid 
That body of the heavenly soul 

Of Music : deep in forest shade, 
Forgotten, lies the scrave they stole ; 

But oftentimes, in Morning gold. 

Or through the Twilight's hushing air. 

Within that valley, green and old, 

Th# Organ's soul arises there. 
201 



THE BURIED ORGAN. 

Ot, low and sweet, and strange, and wild, 

It whispers to the holier air. 
Gentle as lispings of a child — 

Mild as a mother's breathless prayer 
While silence trembles, sweet and low: 

Then rapture bursts into the skies, 
And chanting angels, winging slow 

On wings of music, seem to rise! 

The herdsman sometimes, all alone. 

Is lost within that haunted air: 
He hears the buried Organ's tone — 

His hands are cross'd, his breath is prayer! 
And, while into his heart it steals. 

With hushing footsteps, downcast eyes, 
Some grand cathedral's awe he feels — 

A church of air, and earth, and skies! 

Often, when the sweet wand of Spring 

Has fill'd the woods with flowers unsown. 
Or Autumn's dreamy breeze's wing 

Flutters through falling leaves, alone 
I wander forth, and leave behind 

The city's dust, the sultry glare: 
A lonely dell, far-off, I find — 

I know the Buried Organ there! 
202 



THE BURIED ORGAN. 

Within the city's noisy air 

I leave the creeds their Sabbath bells ; 
I cross my hands, my breath is prayer, 

Hearing that Organ's mystic swells. 
The sweet birds sing, the soft winds blow. 

The flowers have whispers low, apart : 
All wake within me, loud or low, 

God's buried Organ — ^in my heart ! 
203 



TWO PATRONS. 

" What shall I sing," I sigh'd and said, 
" That men shall know me when my name 

Is lost with kindred lips and dead 
Are lamrels of familiar fame?" 

Below, a violet in the dew 

Breathed through the dark its vague perfume ; 
Above, a star in quiet blue 

Touch'd with a gracious ray the gloom. 

" Sing, friend, of me," the violet sigh'd, 
" That I may haunt your grave with love ;" 

"Sing, friend, of me," the star replied, 
" That I may light the dark above." 
204 



GENIUS LOCI, 

Yes, this is tlie place where my boyhood 
Saw its beautiful season depart: 

The butterfly flutter' d in sunshine, 
The chrysalis lies in my heart! 

Still green are the hills in the distance. 
And breathing of Summer the farms, 

But the years take the Present forever 
To the Past with their shadowy arms. 

I wander in pathways familiar: 
Old faces forget, or are blind; 

The footsteps of strangers have trodden 
The footprints I deem'd I would find. 

Come back to me, beautiful visions! 

Steal over me, lovelier sky! 
With the flower-like soul of my boyhood, 

Blossom, sweet days gone by! 
205 



GENIUS LOCI. 

My boyhood, come back! In tbe sunshine 

A hoop is the world of his care: 
He gazes at me for a moment, 
^ And passes away in the air I 

Come back! From the school that is ended 
Boy-faces rush joyous and bright: 

One, only, among them remembers 
And vanishes into the light! 

Come back! With a kite in his heaven 
His heart's happy wings are agleam: 

He hearkens my call for a moment, 
And flashes away with my dream! 
206 



APART. 

At sea are tossing ships ; 

On shore are dreaming shells, 
And the waiting heart and the loving Ups, 
Blossoms and bridal bells. 

At sea are sails a-gleam ; 

On shore are longing eyes, 
And the far horizon's haunting dream 

Of ships that sail the skies. 

At sea are masts that rise 

Like spectres from the deep ; 
On shore are the ghosts of drowning cries 

That cross the waves of sleep. 

At sea are wrecks a-strand ; 

On shore are shells that moan. 
Old anchors buried in barren sand, 

Sea-mist and dreams alone. 
207 



AFTER A WHILE. 

On the cold hills the moon lies white, 
The ghostly Frost arises bright; 
Lost winds wail in the homeless air, 
"Wandering wearily, every -where : 
But, wrapt in dreams of summer mirth, 
My cricket sings upon the hearth; 
My heart to dreams his dreams beguile — 
^^ After a while^ after a whiles 

Below the embers ashes darkle ; 
Above, the lithe flames leap and sparkle, 
Dancing to all fantastic forms 
Of all that gladdens, cheers and warms; 
And, singing to my fancies sweet. 
The cricket's spell the flames repeat; 
My heart to dreams their dreams beguile — • 
'-''After a while, after a while" 

I shut my eyes : my life I see — 
Oh, miracle ! — a blossoming tree ! 
208 



AFTER A WHILE. 

(The world's sad winds, that cried for rest, 
Cradled in blossoms slumber bless'd;) 
And from its fragant-bearted May 
Some sweet bird joins the cricket's lay; 
Ob, tender songs my dreams beguile — 

'-'■ After a luhile, after a while.'' 

Winds, rock the world in fairy dreams ! 
Rise, Frost, and baunt tbe sleeping streams ! 
Below tbe embers asbes darkle ; 
Above, tbe litbe flames leap and sparkle ; 
Sweet bird, bright flames, blithe cricket start 
The same dear song of hearth and heart! — 
I whisper low, with sigh and smile, 

^^ After a while^ after a while." 
18 209 



TO 



THE CALL OP THE YOUNG MAN. 

Beloved One — whose gentle, floating form 
Visits my dreams in blissful heart and eyes — 

Where art thou, Love? My heart is beating warm ; 
From dreams alone, I rise ! 

Long have I known thee : first I saw thy face, 
With laughter ringing through thy girlhood years, 

Kissing the Future with a buoyant grace, 
The Past with lighted tears. 

Come from my dreaming to my waking heart I 
Awake, within my soul there stands alone 

Thy marble soul : in lovely dreams apart, 
Thy sweet heart fills the stone I 

Oft I have trembled with a maiden near, 

In the dear dream that thou wast come at last, 

Veil'd in her face : oh, empty atmosphere I — 
Those dreams woke in the Past! 
210 



**T0 



It may be, thou hast ne'er had mortal birth, 

Or childhood's wings to Heaven with thee have 
flown, 

My Eve in Paradise! O'er all the Earth 
Must Adam walk alone? 

Oh, that thou breathest Earth or Heaven, I know; 

I call, like Orpheus, into shadowy air: 
"Where art thou, dear? My heart makes answer low — 

Its bridal chamber — "Where?" 

Oh, waken in my morning thy pure eyes ! 

Thy voice from angel-air of dreams remove. 
Sweet Chance ! blow those strange seeds of Paradise 

Together, flowering love ! 

While yet my life is in warm bloom, appear; 

Come ere the first veil from the years depart. 
Cottage with thee to me were palace. Dear, 

Thy palace be my heart! 
211 



MELANCHOLY. 

Where'er I laugh a buried echo sighs; 

Some coffin full of ashes 
Uplifts its dead; a sea-deep sorrow lies 

Under a wave that flashes. 

I know not why this moan steals into May, 

To make its joy so hollow; 
Some woful hearse keeps hushing through the day- 

My thoughts, dark mourners, follow. 
212 



FOLDED DOWN. 

We read togetlier — here the book. 

(Eyes tender-lidded, drooping, brown \) 
The bees were in the roses. Look, 

The leaf is folded down. 

It is the story, dear and old, 

Whisper'd forever warm and new: 
The world is in its age of gold 

When two are lovers true. 

We read together : in the sun 

The brooklet laugh'd through grass and flowers, 
All birds were singing ; two in one 

We clasp'd the fragrant hours. 

The poet's flower — the rose of Love, 
Whence all our costliest honey flows — 

Was rooted in the book : above. 
Within our hearts the rose ! 
213 



FOLDED DOWN. 

The poet's dream — the vision, Love, 
For whicli all sleeping wake, I deem — 

Shadow'd eacli page with wings : above, 
"Within our souls the dream ! 

We read of Loss that leaves the heart 
A sea-shell on vague shores of fate. 

Murmuring, dumb : there walk'd apart 
A maiden desolate. 

A sail shone in the horizon's gleam 

Where the moon came — a twilight ghosts 

The specter of a vanish'd dream 
That haunts a lonely coast. 

What spider from the rose you kiss'd 
Crawl'd, that we read no more that day? 

We learn in many an autumn mist 
The brightness of the May. 

I turn the page — behold the prize : 
The years like funeral ravens flown. 

The sail 's reflected in the skies ; 
The shell has lost its moan. 
214 



FOLDED DOWN. 

From shade to sun, to bliss from grief! 

December's warm'd by gracious May; 
Ob, fools ! we miss'd the golden leaf. 

I read alone to-day. 

Is it a memory or a dream? 

(Eyes tender-lidded, drooping, brown !) 
In that sad poem, Life, I deem, 

The leaf was folded down. 
215 



THE LOVE-LETTER. 

I GREET thee, loving letter — 
Unopen'd kiss tliee free, 

And dream her lips within thee 
Give hack the kiss to me ! 

The fragrant little rose-leaf, 
She sends by thee, is come : 

Ah, in her heart was blooming 
The rose she stole it from ! 
216 



CONFIDANTS. 

All things that know a lover's heart 
Know the warm secret closed in mine; 

From all things eager whispers start — 
"We know, we know it! she is thine." 

The swallow seeking southern skies, 

Where some clear summer waters shine, 

Circles my tropic dream and flies, 
Singing, "I fly, but she is thine." 

Pale flowers, which Autumn's lips have kissd, 
Whose far-off May gives back no sign. 

Murmur farewell — their souls in mist — 
But smile, in dying, "she is thine." 

The cricket from my hearth at night 
Thrills the vague hours with carols fine, 

Singing the darkness into light, 
"After a while, and she is thine." 
19 217 



THE DESERTED SMITHT. 

At the end of the lane and in sight of the mill, 
Is the smithy ; I pass it to-day, in a dream 

Of the days whose red blood in my bosom is warm 
While the real alone as the vanish'd I deem : 

For the years they may crmnble to dust in the heart, 

But the roses will bloom though the gravestones 
depart. 

In the loneliest evenings of long ago, 

The smithy was dear in the darkness to me, 
When the clouds were all heaping the world with 
their snow. 
And the wind shiver' d over dead leaves on the 
tree ; 
Through the snow-shower it seemed to be bursting 

aflame : 
How the sparks in the dark from the chimney 
came ! 

218 



THE DESERTED SMITHY. 

It was dear in the past — and still it is dear, 
In the memory old of the vanishing time, 
"When the hinging and banging, and clinging and 
clanging, 
In the heart of my boyhood, were music and 
rhyme ; 
When the bellows groan'd to the furnace-glow, 
And the lights thro' the chinks danced out in the 
snow. 

The irons within on the anvils were ringing : 
There were glowing arms in the bursting gleam ; 

And shadows were glowering away in the gloaming, 
That, suddenly bounding to giants, would seem 

Now out of the open doorways to spring, 

Now up in the rafters vanishing. 

The smith I remember : oh, many a smile 

Has played on his lips with me, and kind 
Were the words that would lighten the gloom of his 
face — 
His face, at the memory, gleams in my mind ! — 
With a heart that could beat in the heart of a 

boy, 
A heart for his sorrow, a heart for his joy ! 
219 



THE DESERTED SMITHY. 

Adown from the farm of my father once moro 
(That so long has forgotten us up on the hill) — 

With the wings in my blood to the bound of the 
steed, 
That passes the breezes so merry and shrill — 

I seem to be flying ; but, suddenly. 

In the Past, alone, is my memory ! 

In a dream ! — in a dream ! But I pass it to-day : 
No longer the furnace is bursting with flame ; 

No longer the music comes^out of the door, 
That, long ago, to the schoolboy came : 

The winds whisper low thro' the window and door, 

The chimney is part of the dust of the floor. 

PhcBbe Morris ! sweet Phoebe ! the sweetest of girls 
That brighten'd old dreams with a beautiful face ! — 

It may be she smiled from her father's lips. 
And blossomed her smile in the dusky place ! 

Ah, she smiles, to-day, in my boyhood for me. 

With her lips that are kissing — a memory ! 
220 



FALLEN LEAVES. 

I LOVE to steal my way 
Through the bright woods, when Autumn's work is 

done 
And through the tree-tops all the dream-like day 

Breathes the soft golden sun; 

When all is hush'd and still, 
Only a few last leaves, fluttering slow 
Down the warm air with ne'er a breeze's will- 

A ghost of sound below ; 

When naught of song is heard, 
Save the jay laughing while all nature grieves, 
Or the lone chirp of some forgotten bird 

Among the fallen leaves. 

Around me every-where 
Lie leaves that trembled green the Summer long, 
Holding the rainbow's tears in sunny air, 

And roof 'd the Summer's song. 
221 



FALLEN LEAVES. 

Why shun my steps to tread 
These silent hosts that every -where are strown, 
As if my feet were walking 'mong the dead, 

And I alive alone? 

Hast no bright trees, O Past! 
Through whose bare boughs, once green, the sunshine 

grieves? 
No hopes that flutter'd in the autumnal blast, 
No memories — Fallen Leaves? 
222 



AN ECHO. 

"Come back," I sigh'd — 

The flower 
I dropp'd upon the tide 

Was vanish 'd many an hour. 
"Come back," the Echo sigh'd 

"Come back," I cried — 

The love, 
Flower-like I cast aside, 
An angel bears above. 
"Come back," the Echo cried. 
223 



IN OCTOBER. 

A FLTJSh'd cathedral, grand with loneliness, 
Gloomy with light and bright with shadow, seems 
Thy catholic air, October. Holiest gleams 
Alight like angels in each dim recess 
Through the stain'd oriels of the east and west ; 
Thy floors float radiant with flutterings 
Of moving shadows, ghosts of glorious wings ; 
Some organ's soul arises in the breast 
Of him who walks thy aisles in revery bound : 
The stops of silence tremble into sound. 
Lo, Nature brings her dead for burial rite ! 
Upon thy solemn altars dress'd for Death 
She lays her beautiful ; the mother's brow 
is bow'd, while for her darling ones she grieves 
And o'er their burial breathes her tenderest breath 
As o'er their baptism in the April light; 
And Autumn, gorgeous preacher, murmurs now 
Sermons of dying flowers and falling leaves. 
224 



THE BIRD? OF LONGING. 

The mournful Birds are flown 
That flutter'd in my breast 

Through all the days of Spring, 
And fiU'd me with unrest. 

The Birds of Longing wild ! 

They came in April skies, 
Among the blossoming boughs. 

The winged prophecies. 

Of unknown summer lands 

They sang their haunting dreams- 
Poor tropic birds, asleep 

To wake in Arctic gleams ! 

"Whence came ye, Birds?" I said: 
They sang, "We have no home; 

Lost are the nests we loved— 
We long, and long must roam. 
225 



THE BIRDS OF LONGING. 

"Blown by the vernal winds, 
Warm blossom-bearers, we 

From soul to soul in Spring- 
Drift over land and sea." 



THE GRAVE OF ROSE. 

I CAME to find her blithe and bright, 
Breathing the household full of bloonij 

Wreathing the fireside with delight — 
I found her in her tomb ! 

I came to find her gathering flowers — 
Their fragrant souls, so pure and dear, 

Haunting her face in lonely hours: 
Her single flower is here ! 

For, look: the gentle name that shows 
Her love, her loveliness, and bloom, 

(Her only epitaph — a rose) — 
Is growing on her tomb I 
227 



MOTHS. 

At mom I walk in sunshine warm and tender ; 

My eyes look into Fairyland for hours : 
The butterflies with Eastern lust and splendor 

Grow winged counterparts to wingless flowers. 

At noon I dream m meadows sweet and sunny ; 

My heart with summer songs and perfume glows : 
The bees on sunburnt voyages for honey 

Reach their Hesperides in every rose. 

At eve I write by restless lampUght sitting ; 

My soul is fuU of shadowy, subtile things ; 
The ghostly moths around my lamp are flitting, 

Guests of the light that, coming, lose their wings. 

My poems, butterflies at morning gleaming. 

And bees at noon, are but vague moths at night : 
Look, the flame beckons — from the darkness stream- 
ing, 
Wingless they drop at thresholds of the light ! 
228 



STEPS OF GHOSTS. 



In the olden mansion lying, 
That knew me long ago, 

I see the far white river 
Shivering in the snow. 



The moon, so close by the window, 
Freezes in the trees with her light — 

A glitter of motionless silence, 
All the ice-lit branches bright! 

Jarring the drowsy stillness. 

There are footsteps on the stair, 

Lifting their ghostly echoes 

From the chambers every-where ! 

How near they startle the stairway! 

I feel the opening door! 
Now, far and fainter, and dying, 

They echo in me no more ! 
229 



STEPS OP GHOSTS. 

In a moment the door will open! 

How near they grow again ! — 
They have left the ghost of their silence 

Walking within my brain ! 

Upon the haunted stairway 
I have heard them oft before; 

In this olden house, returning, 
They haunt me evermore. 

Strangers have never heard them — 

I know they all are mine. 
Rising, heart, and dying 

On that haunted stair of thine. 

To me forever returning 

Myself forever fled, 
Startling the stair forever and ever, 

I hear my footsteps dead! 

life, make braver thy beating! 

The terror on the stair 
Is the long, long dread procession 

That follows thee every-where! 
230 



THE STRANGE ORGANIST 

Deep in the dim cathedral gloom, 
Where incense aU the ages rose, 

I walk, alone. The mystic bloom 
Of saintly silence round me glows. 

High Church of Song ! hallow'd place. 
Where haunt the hymns of bards of old 1 

Light shone on many a lifted face 
When holy floods of music roll'd. 

Deep in the dim cathedral hush 
I stand alone, the Organ's keys 

Touching with wandering fingers — blush, 

Sad soul, what harmonies are these 1 

231 



"WESTERN WINDOWS, 

AND 

OTHER POEMS. 

BY JOHN JAMES PIATT. 

1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. 



Extracts from Critical Opinions. 

'* It bears the impress in its toces and in its imagery of Weftern forests 
and ^Vestern progress — the old primeval forests giving place to the pioneer, 
and he again to cities, and ' the busy hum of men.' The pictures of by- 
gone life — rf old homesteads end gravf^yards relapsed into solitude, while 
the train and the railway ca^ry the generation far beyond them to new settle- 
ment^, — ' The Pioneer's Chimney,' ' King's Tavern,' ' Fires in Illinois,' * A ^ 
Lost Graveyard,' are all voices speaking of long ago, and linking it with the 
present. 'The M >wer in Ohio,' is the poem we like the best — an old man 
whose son=! have gone to the war, and left him to mow his field alone. A 
whole life-history is put into a few stanzas ; the pathetic and heroic mingle 
together; few will read it without a mist in the eyes, and a lump in the 
throat. It appears to us that f ince the war the American people give utter- 
ance to deeper and nob'er thoughts in their poetry ; they have gained an in- 
dividuality of their own, and their verse is not the reflex and imitation of 
other poets in distant climes. Occasionally Mr. Piatt gives us an echo of 
Longfellow and Tennyson, but his best poems are his own, ani recall no re- 
membrauce or shade of the poetry of others." — London At/ienieum. -^ 

" This volume is one among not a few recent proofs tba|.America is ac- 
quiring a poetical literature that is distinctly her own Another 

Bet of subj-cts is peculiarly connected with Mr. Piatt's own locality in the 
States. The great westward movement, which, in the course of the last half 
century, has changed forests and prairies into settlements and even into great 
cities, shows many phases of life which the poet may readily se'ze. The era- 
grants themselvt'S were men of the rifle and the plow, and not of the [.en, 
but the rapid grow h of .society has already produced ih^volfs sneer who will 
not suffer tbem to pass into obliv on. The best pnem of this class is ' The 
Pioneer's Chimne/.' In some respects it shoe's more poetical culture ai)d 
power than the one we have quoted. It is written in bl.-mk ver^e,and i"; does 

not fail to satisfy in no common degree that crucial test There 

are numerous poems de.«cribing Western Fcerery and liTe. We trust that the 
reader will now have seen enough of VIr. Piat 's quality lo be anxious to 
judge tf them for himself." — London Spectator. 



" The lovely home-feeling of many of the other poems seems to bans a new 
garland on every domestic altar."— The Independent. 

" There is something agreeably and unmistakably Western in him for all 
that. ' The Mower in Ohio,' ' The Pioneer's Chimney,' ' Riding to Vote,' and 
other of his poems, are examples of wha^. we mean. In these he shows that 
true poetic insight which creates the ideal under the common and familiar, 
•which are but ribs of death to the unanointed eye. ' ThK Pioneer's Chim- 
ney,' especially, is a simple story, so simply told as to reach a natural dig- 
nity and pathos th^t interest and move us strongW. Witliout being in any 
sense an imitation of Wordsworth, it may compare favorably with the best 
narrative parti of ' The Excursion.' * The Mower in Ohio,' also, has touches 
of singular beauty and tenderness. Indeed, throughout the volume there ia 
a pensiveness, without despondency, as of Indian Summer. In his general 
choice of subjects, and mode of treating them, we find a native sweetness 
and humanity, a domesticity of sentiment, that is very attractive." — North 
American Review. 

"Of all our younger writers he has most clearly studied the prairies, the 
sun?et3 and sunrises, and the characteristic home-life of his native West." — 
Putnam's Monthly. 

" The longest poem in the volume is an idyl of Western life, called ' Th» 
Pioneer's Chimney,' and it is greatly to the credit of Mr. Piatt that this blank 
verse in no sense suggests the idyllic blink verse of Tennyson, but reminds 
us, if of any one, of the earlier masters of this measure, Wordsworth and 
Coleridge. Its length prevents us from quoting it entire, and no extract will 
do it justice." — il. H. Stoddard. 

*' They are unmistakably inspired by genuine love, by sympathy with the 
human associations that cluster around the objects which he celebrates, and 
in many instances are softened and almost glorified by an expression of sweet 
and tender pathos." — New York Tribune. 

" Some of the ballads of the war in this voluni"* have not b-en surpassed, 
and will certainly remain as most true aad striking contemporary pictures." 
— Harper''s Weekly. 

" We are glad to welcome this volume as an expression of American feel- 
ing, and a worthy contribution to American litsrature." — Providence (iJ. 
I.) Press. 

" It is not too much to say — though it is saying a good deal — that it is 
■worth while to read all the poems in the book; they all represent real poetic 
impulses, and have a pensive and delicate charm which is entirely their 
own." — Atlantic Monthly. 



HURD &. HOUGHTON, Publishers, New York. 



MRS. PIATT'S POEMS, 



A WOMAN'S POEM3. 

BY MRS. S. M. B. PIATT. 

16nio. $1.50. 



Extracts from Critical Opinions. 

" Wa believe that her first poems were published in the ' Louisville Jour- 
nal,' where, as Miss Sallie M. Bryan, she achieved an enviable repute among 
readers of taste and culture in the Southwest. In quantity it is not a great 
book ; but in quality, in delicacy, originality, artistic feeling, and power, no 
American poetess has given us a greater one — and here we say less than 
might be said of it. There is no page of its scant hundred and thirty which 
does not bear witness to her genius ; and the expression is always as new as 
the thought is fine and sweet. Of other young poets you say that one writes 
like Tennyson, another like Longfellow ; but Mrs. Piatt, for good or ill, writes 

like herself. We think she does so for good At her worst she is 

obscure; at her best she writes poetry delightful for its music, its tender 
sentiment, its subtle thoughtfulnesa. We detect, also, in this volume, that 
new flavor which the maturing life of the West adds to American literature — 
a flavor not dependent at all upon a choice of Western themes, or ' dialect,' 
but imbuing the treatmentof all subjects; something different from the mor- 
alized ideality of New England poetry ; something nearer to pure feeling, 

easier, simpler, and more familiar, yet delicate and authentic 

There are many little poems about children in the book, and all are marked 
by delicate thoughtfulness, and this half-sad, half- playful grace; and, like 

this poem, they are all different from other poems about children 

Within the somewhat narrow bounds set them, they are to be highly valued, 
and we think that none who approaches them in the sympathetic temper 
which all poems require, will fail to be charmed with them, whilst all must 
feel their originality."— Tke Independent. 

" We like them so well for what they are, that we shall be far from making 
it a cause of offense in the author that she has not written like a man. It 
appears tD us that the only quality which it is worth while for women to con- 
tribute to literature is precisely this feminine quality We think 

of no woman poet in America who equals her in authenticity of touch, and 



none sarpasses her in certain subtile graces which we hope have been dis- 
cerned in the poems we have quoted from her book." — Tke Atlantic Monthly. 
\ " They are decidedly above the average of published poems ; a certain sim- 
plicity, both of figure and language, imparts a real charm." — Harper''s Mag- 
azine. 

" Among the fifty poems in Mrs. Piatt's collection, there are none that are 
commonplace, and few that are not sweetly and carefully composed. Perhaps 
their most obvious characteristic i? a delicate faucy, which seizes upon som& 
common object or situation , discovers a daintily poetical meaning underneath^ 
and expresses this in a refined and original way. When she is at her best she 
is charming; and this is precisely in those pieces of which the fancy is clearly 
discerned by the poet, and made plain to the reader Her affec- 
tions are tender and genuine, her thought' pure, and her language has a 

winsome grace of its own She has a special gift of seeing into a 

child's heart, and all of her songs to or coDcerning little ones are full of the 

heaven which lies about us in our infancy Elsewhere in her 

poetry we discern the higher gifts — genuine imngination, and mastery of a 
strong theme." — NeivYorlc Evening Post. --f^ 

" The wife, the mother, the true woman shines through them all." —Protr- 
idence {R. I.) Press. 

'" " A volume of verse which is eminently womanly in tone, taste, sentiment 
and melody; sweet, kind, devoted, and aftectionate thoughts, uttered with 
grace and emphasis." — H. T. Tuckerman. 

•' Mrs. Piatt's book is rightly named, for the finest feminine qualities char- 
acteiize its contents. Here we may see faithfully and delicately pictured girl^ 
sweetheart, wife, and mother ; and, as faithfully, the ideal woman alone, with 
her own soul and its creation." — Cincinnati Gazette. 

"These poems are marked by a certain half-careless grace, and embody 
fancies and shadowy suggestions, half uttered, airly hinted, hid in musical 
murmurs. They affect one like a song at a distance." — Boston Common- 
wealth.. 

" The title-page of her book is no misnomer. Her poems are the authentic 
prodacta of a feminine soul." — New York Tribune. 



For sale by all Booksellers. Sent post-paid, on receipt 
of price, by the Publishers, 

JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Publishers, 

BOSTON, MASS. 



